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2012-01-06T21:54:00.000-08:00

Trip report - "Wild Weather" Climate One panel talk at SF's Commonwealth Club Dec 13

2011-12-15T17:10:00.001-08:00

Tuesday afternoon I drove down to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco for an evening Climate One event titled "Wild Weather", a panel discussion with a host and 3(?) IPCC authors and an extreme-weather crop insurance startup CEO - the panelists were Chris Field, Michael Oppenheimer, Karen O'Brien, and David Friedberg.

The event has been blogged, with link to its podcast, by Justin Gerdis, who IMO did a stellar job.

Here I offer some bits not blogged there; and some event format feedback; and one piece of my-two-cents advice: namely, it probably makes more sense to watch or listen to the recordings than to attend these events in person, if you have any distance to travel.
Sat Dec 17th update: Minor edits, added photo.
Additional content, from my notes -

(Everyone said yes, weather's changing, it's getting more extreme, losses are rising.)

"Crop insurance startup" CEO Friedberg stressed that he doesn't address causality of adverse weather events when talking to current & future clients; no need, plus it could ruffle the feathers of those who hold different views. I believe he noted we expect regional changes in future; and "Texas is very difficult to farm right now."

Oppenheimer said there will be climate change winners and losers, region-wise, so "Global food supply probably won't be threatened [timeframe?]; but we don't have a global food supply."

Karen O’Brien agreed on the food supply problem. She noted the "winners & losers" projections are based on averages, so likely won't reflect the (future) reality, they may overlook extreme weather events. Norway got extreme rains this summer, so now has a butter shortage. (did I mishear the causality? were the cows drowned/washed away?)

Chris Field said in California the (main?) implication of climate change is reduced water security (from lower snowpack); and worldwide, we expect a greater % of precipitation falling in heavy rainstorms.

A consistent message from the panelists was that "things can be done" to adapt and reduce losses; e.g. Oppenheimer cited installation of early warming systems & concrete bunkers in low-lying southern Bangladesh, saying they've reduced storm-related mortality rates by a factor of ~100. (But adaptations that are dramatically effective in the short run can be rendered futile by further change; and nobody asked what'll happen in Bangladesh when the sea level rises another 5 or 10 (or 20 or 70) feet.)

Oppenheimer did say adaptation alone wasn't sufficient response to climate change, that mitigation was needed.
But to my recollection nobody used the excellent metaphor I heard today on the "Governor’s Conference on Extreme Climate Risks and California’s Future" webcast: that the effect of adding climate change to the weather mix is akin to having a kid do a cannonball into the bathtub when it's full, vs. when it's only half full.

Feedback on the event's format, and minor content -
(my two cents, YMMV, etc)

I would have liked to hear the panelists talk more among themselves, giving them more freedom to shape the discussion, but it was mostly the host firing off questions and the panelist(s) answering. This format wasn't ideal but the Qs were intelligent & worked fairly well, until the end, when the host moved into personal-action territory, & didn't seize the contextual opportunity to address or ask about the relative importance of various personal actions. And while some panelists addressed the personal effectiveness issue indirectly (O'Brien in particular, saying "each of us has a circle of influence", and noting we need to "create the systems transformations that are necessary"), nobody tackled the (widely misunderstood among the public) "lightbulbs vs leaders" issue head on.
(Someone - Friedberg? Oppenheimer? - did advise us to "Occupy energy policy", noting Bill Gates had said energy policy is the most important influence; and also said we need governments involved.)

The official Q&A - feedback on its format, & Qs not asked:
Beforehand, I'd been encouraged by the piles of "Write your question for the speaker" forms in the lobby, not being very articulate or public myself; but they went unused, questioners used a mic, in person. I would have liked to have brought up fractional risk attribution (since I don't recall this approach being mentioned, just the usual emotionally-neutral "can't attribute any one event but the dice are getting loaded" framing), and also to have pointed out that we shouldn't view "extreme weather" adaptations as a successful "job well done" if they'll be overrun with further climate change.

The social dynamics of the event didn't match what I'd hoped for, as a blog denizen hungry for the meatspace equivalent of a comments section. My far-flung community doesn't have an active science-aligned-and-oriented climate education group (which is something I have (had?) not, so far, managed (helped?) to change), so I came to this event hoping to meet & learn from & ideally organize with my fellow concerned & already-on-board citizens formerly known as the audience. But at this event we were still just the audience. While a host (of either Climate One or the Commonwealth Club, I forget) did list intra-audience interaction among their goals, the impression I got was that this event series was really geared toward a host-plus-panelists TV performance, with the audience as a prop.

Lighting in the room wasn't audience-friendly, and at the close, the host didn't suggest that the panelists meet&mingle in the lobby, so post-panel Q&Aers were crowded awkwardly between the seats and the podium. While the audience itself was offered a post-event "meet each other in the lobby" opportunity, this was conveyed in an offhand "talk amongst yourselves" manner and nobody took them up on it. And beforehand as well, with few exceptions, audience interaction was near-nonexistent - people just sat&waited, eyes glued to their smartphones, unconscious of fellow sentients nearby.
(Do urban people develop armor like that?)

I did not see a suggestion box.

Assessing contrarian Roy Spencer's science and outreach

2011-12-02T15:03:00.001-08:00

This post - an assessment of Roy Spencer's climate views and actions - was created to serve as a resource for Spencer's SourceWatch page.

Roy Spencer is one of the most prominent contrarian climate scientists influencing public understanding. A Marshall Institute board member, he has reportedly testified before Congress on climate change several times. A commenter (link; h/t Barry Bickmore) offered a well written assessment, substantive parts of which I've copied and edited (and muted the tone of exasperation) below.

... Roy Spencer is one of the two principal researchers behind the development of the University of Alabama Huntsville lower troposphere temperature record, gleaned from a network of satellites that interpret the signals of radiant energy coming through the atmosphere and out into space. For years he’s been a very capable scientist and has many peer-reviewed publications under his belt.

But lately he’s been diverging away from the climate science mainstream by suggesting that some key forcings have been misunderstood widely by his colleagues, mostly related to clouds. He firmly believes that they have the relationship between cloud cover and climate trends backwards. He believes that climate sensitivity to increasing greenhouse gases is extraordinarily low, and so anthropogenic GHG emissions can’t be driving the current warming trend anywhere near the extent it’s commonly accepted by his peers, and that warming won’t be a problem for the future. Well, that’s all well and good, right? Disagreements are a fact of life even (especially!) in the sciences.
But rather than work through the issue in the peer-reviewed literature, the bulk of his efforts have been spent in convincing the public of his side through his blog and books, largely not engaging the rest of the climate scientists. It’s not that he hasn’t tried period, but sometimes his papers are rejected; he’s convinced that this is due to a real conspiracy against him by a small cabal of “alarmists,” to keep his work out of the literature and keep dissenting opinions from circulating. ... For the last few years he has intentionally avoided submitting his work to rigorously peer-reviewed outlets in favor of a faster-turnaround, refereed Letters-type journal...
...The introduction to his ...[general-public] book included musings that either he is smarter than all of the rest of his peers, or they must be dishonestly avoiding the conclusions he has reached... He did not mention that he could simply be mistaken. He’s been fond of criticizing climate models because he believes them to be largely ...curve-fitting without real physical merit, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to create a simple model which turned out to be an exercise in curve-fitting without real physical merit. Despite several deep criticisms of his approach, he continued to develop the model in all the wrong ways.

(When a paper based on an earlier model was held up in review, and then not given much attention immediately afterwards, he took it as evidence that his message was being censored and suppressed instead of it indicating any kind of issue over the paper’s validity).
...
Spencer’s last peer-reviewed paper (Spencer and Braswell 2011) was published in the small, young journal Remote Sensing. Immediately after it came out, Spencer penned a press release that ...[misrepresented] what the paper contained and this misleading picture was quickly picked up by certain politically-aligned elements of the media with wildly misleading headlines and coverage. This prompted the Editor-in-Chief of the journal to investigate the matter and what he found was such...[that he resigned, saying:
"comparable studies published by other authors have already been refuted in open discussions and to some extend also in the literature..., a fact which was ignored by Spencer and Braswell in their paper and, unfortunately, not picked up by the reviewers. ... The paper... should therefore not have been published. I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper's conclusions in public statements, e.g., in a press release of The University of Alabama in Huntsville...[and] the main author's personal webpage. ..."]
This event prompted Spencer to claim that he was really forced out by IPCC conspirators. The paper has since been [rebutted]... with a peer-reviewed response (PDF) and by heavy scrutiny on scientist-run blogs.

Guidestar: IRS revoked nonprofit status of anti-science Science and Public Policy Institute

2011-12-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

The IRS has revoked the nonprofit status of the global warming denial Science and Public Policy Institute.

Formed in 2007, and nominally a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN# 62-1694476), SPPI had never filed a Form 990 or equivalent with the IRS.

SPPI's Guidestar page shows this message:

"This organization's exempt status was automatically revoked by the IRS for failure to file a Form 990, 990-EZ, 990-N, or 990-PF for 3 consecutive years. Further investigation and due diligence is warranted."

SPPI head Robert Ferguson's salary is now paid by the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: in 2010, he pulled down a meager $312,500, according to their 2010 IRS form 990 (Guidestar, EIN 86-0902777).

----
Something I've learned recently is that for 990s, different sites have different pros and cons. ERI has 990s going back to circa 2002, which is fantastic, but it's delayed in putting the 2010 990s online, and had no mention of SPPI's status being revoked. (Whereas Guidestar has only 3 years of 990s, plus you have to register & sign in, but they are more up to date.)

"Nonprofit" anti-regulation groups evading transparency by exploiting IRS loopholes

2011-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

A lot of anti-regulation groups seem to be evading the spirit of the law with the IRS & transparency lately.

Influential nonprofits are supposed to file a yearly return with the IRS to tell us how much money they were given, how much they have, how much money they're spending and who's getting it, and who's running the show & how much they're paid.
Yet...

The global warming inaction Science and Public Policy Institute - formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit circa 2007 - has (recently?) had its nonprofit status revoked for not filing any returns with the IRS.

The global warming inaction American Freedom Alliance - already active in 2007, notable last spring for their conference featuring Lord Monckton - still has not filed a return, according to Guidestar.

The Western Tradition Partnership, politically-embedded predecessor and seeming companion 501(c)(4) nonprofit to the all-volunteer, lawsuit-filing, exempt-documents-seeking Western Tradition Institute 501(c)(3), might or might not be a valid nonprofit (its EIN# exists, but Guidestar doesn't recognize it), and does not appear to have filed any returns with the IRS.

Both the Heartland Institute and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation are supporting anti-regulation groups internationally, but are not required to identify these recipients because the recipients aren't within the U.S.
~~(Plus it's possible that the mighty-well-funded Atlas didn't file a return at all in 2008; that year's filing isn't present on Guidestar or ERI.)~~
Dec. 8 update: An Atlas staffer pointed me to this page for their 990s and other documentation.

Dec. 8 update II: The don't-price-carbon Breakthrough Institute doesn't appear to even be a 501(c)(3); despite having considerable staff, it's still under the wing of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which lets it skip filing any Form 990s.

Is this a new strategy, old lessez-faire, or happenstance?

(Here's hoping the Mashey-Deep duo can enlighten us on this.)

---------
(My own county has issues too - the anti-regulation, science-agnostic "Sierra Environmental Studies Foundation" has given out $65k in math(*)-test-driven scholarships over the last 4+ years, but has never had to file a [non-postcard] return because they keep their expenditures below $25k a year. And the head of the anti-regulation group CABPRO was claiming it was a nonprofit, yet seemingly never filed returns with the IRS; though they've since backtracked from the "nonprofit" claim.)
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Minor edits 2012-01-17

David H. Freedman SciAm article raising doubts about econ models; implications for climate?

2011-10-27T23:38:00.000-07:00

Note: I'm no expert on models & would appreciate corrections.
Over in the Nov. 2011 Scientific American, Wrong author David H. Freedman has an article titled Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong, in which Freedman builds off a 2005 paper (pdf) by earth scientist Jonathan N. Carter et al. from a conference on Sensitivity Analysis of Model Output; the paper's titled "Our Calibrated Model has No Predictive Value: An Example from the Petroleum Industry" (Freedman, pers. comm.). The SciAm article starts with this geophysical model, draws conclusions about economic models, and mentions climate models not at all.

If I understand correctly, Carter and colleagues found that when they tweaked parameters to "hindcast", i.e. to fit the existing dataset perfectly, that multiple sets of parameter values would equally well fit these existing data - yet, having different parameter values, they'd diverge in their future forecasts, and thus, Freedman says, economic models are inherently flawed.

Some commenters on the article are taking this "econ models are inherently flawed" argument to mean that, because climate models are calibrated(?validated?) via hindcasting, they too are dubious.

I asked climate modeling software prof. Steve Easterbrook to weigh in on this, & his essential answer was basically no because climate models are physics-based, unlike economic models; but yes, the same hazard does lie in wait and must be avoided:

"The phenomenon described is completely correct. If you use empirical methods to tune the models, you’re in danger of getting bad forecasts. For models of the physical climate, this is avoided by paying more attention to the underlying physics – instead of empirical tuning, you work on understanding the underlying processes, and improving how they’re captured in the model. Then you do lots of different hindcasts, process studies, etc, to check how well you did. One of the problems with economics models is there is no set of basic physical principles to underpin them. Which makes it much harder to avoid the problem."

Commenter SteveO (#23 &24) concurs, concluding:

"this is why climate models are pretty good predictors of reality (and global warming). They are not just randomly fit numerical models, they are based on physical principles, thus usefully constraining the formula-space to ones that adequately model reality."

And commenter Patricio Parada (#36) points out that you use two separate sets of data, the first to "train" the model, the second to assess how good the model is:

"one should divide the data in two subsets: a training set for model computation, and a validation set, for generalization study, and compute the fitness of the model to both sets. Only then, I have all the ingredients needed to select a model that explains both the training data and generalizes well."

And Dr. Carter says:

(tbd)

If a YouTube video is captioned, you can pull & read the transcript

2011-10-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

The glory that is this YouTube closed-caption ripper likely renders unnecessary many of the "notes and transcripts" blogposts in here.

(This is a good thing.)

Notes from Alex Steffen’s Aug 2011 TED talk, "The shareable future of cities"

2011-10-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

Update: this was unneeded effort - on each video's webpage, TED has an "interactive transcript" (where you can click on that text, to see the transcript). So read the whole thing, go there instead.

My notes from watching Alex Steffen’s (10 min.) August 2011 TED talk, The shareable future of cities:

When we have overwhelming problems in front of us, we tend to seek simple answers, & I think this is what we’ve done with climate change.
We look at where emissions are coming from, they’re coming out of our tailpipes and smokestacks and so forth, the problem is they’re coming from fossil fuels that we’re burning – & so the answer must be to replace those fossil fuels with clean energy. While of course we do need clean energy, it’s possible that by looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we’re in fact setting ourselves up not to solve it..

We’ll be an overwhelmingly urban species…

If we’re seriously talking about tackling climate change on an urbanizing planet, we need to look somewhere else [besides just making more clean energy] for the solution.

The solution may be closer to hand than we think – all those cities we’re building are actually opportunities…
Every city determines energy use of its inhabitants... Denser places tend to have lower emissions… [When] we hop in our cars…we’re using mobility to get the access we need. In a denser community, the things we need are close by; and since the most sustainable trip is the one you never had to make in the first place…

It’s possible to increase the density of an existing place – sometimes with new eco districts, but usually by reweaving the urban fabric that we already have; e.g. infill development, urban retrofitting raise average density. We don't need to densify an entire city, we can raise the avg density by raising in specific spots a whole lot – called “tentpole density”.

When we get a lot of people together there’s a threshold effect – quit driving as much, increasingly give up cars altogether – is a huge energy savings (in driving infrastructure, in car mfg – it can cut transportation-related emissions by as much as 90%)
(want dream neighborhood, not dream home)

Ubiquitous communication is helping a lot -
e.g. Mapnificent (mapnificent.net) – which maps how far I can get from home in 30 min using public transportation.

We’re starting to crowdsource information.

We want access to the capacities of things.

Our cities are stockpiles of surplus capacities.

We're turning products into services; even space itself is turning into a service.

Often the assumption (as shown in architectural visioning) is that “a sustainable city is covered in greenery” – but in fact it’s not about the leafs above, it’s the systems below…[details on the systems]
Paul Hawken says that our society operates by stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP.

2011 GMU survey: 3/4 of weathercasters holding highest cert. don't know climate change basics

2011-10-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

As noted elsewhere on Tuesday, an analysis (xls; results on line 18; mine, perhaps flawed, please report an error ) of weathercaster survey data pulled from the June 2011 George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication (4C) report (pdf), found that the highest-certified weathercasters, the American Meteorological Society Certified Broadcast Meteorologists (AMS CBMs), indeed had more climate understanding than weathercasters holding lesser certifications, and were twice as likely to grasp the scientific consensus (that climate change appears to be happening & human-caused) as the lowest, no-certification group. But a bigger truth is disturbing: more than 3 out of 4 CBM-holders didn't know this.

Why is AMS certifying weathercasters who either don't know or don't care about climate scientists' understanding of climate change?

Removal of earlier post - and paging James Merriner

2011-09-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Edited.
I've removed this blog's June 28 "... funder..." blogpost, since it addressed connections that I couldn't prove - and since I haven't been able get confirmation that my copy of the "draconian memo" (that Merriner had written about in the Chicago Reader) is genuine.

According to Merriner, and according to the copy I saw, the United Republican Fund had engaged in seriously unprofessional conduct - search the article for "In April 1993".

Notes from Oreskes "Merchants of Doubt" interview

2011-09-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

See Tamino's post for the excellent (34 min) interview & a discussion thereof. Here are my notes from watching:

Marshall Institute was originally founded (by 3) to defend SDI (star wars)
The idea of demanding equal time - Seitz learned it from tobacco industry
They came from cold war rocketry programs

It's not overt corruption; no $ from corporate supporters at all, originally. Initially a modest budget, just the 3 of them; tactics were writing letters to editors, also including threatening to sue, e.g. a public radio station for equal time;
Their original $ came from foundations. Later that shifted...
They believed what they were pushing. It's a story of error, but not of corruption.

They believed passionately that the Soviet Union was a serious threat.
The pathology is what happens when the cold war ends, 5 yrs after GMI's founding. So then they're at a loss for what to do...but (the pathology of a life spent fighting) they couldn't stop fighting. 1989 (the year Berlin wall comes down) their new enemy is environmentalism. Now it's made explicitly (enviros=commies!)

Ironically, the environmental movement in the u.s. was created by progressive republicans... pinchot, roosevelt, rockefeller - hardly a communist.

Their projection of a certain sort of cold war anticommunist anxiety onto a group of people whose historical roots are actually not left wing at all.
Environmentalism begins to be leftwing after Nixon because of the issue of regulation - it's no longer land conservation/preservation, becomes regulating business activity - now the business community/hard right wing of the Republican party begins to align itself against environmentalism & against regulation.

This is where they make the link to communism - saying slippery slope, just a matter of time...

Tobacco - their (messaging) target is the public, but they use science to do it -
attack the science (dishonest) since if people think the science is unsettled, they'll think it's premature to impose regulations.

Doubtmongering - a very clever campaign. Tobacco PR told their scientists "don't lie, you don't have to"
16:22

Yet to be an agnostic in the face of 50 years of overwhelming scientific data...that should be suspicious to people, that should be fishy

In 1990s fossil fuel industry starts to make common cause, funnel money into these institutes.
Surprising how many things the tobacco industry funded that had nothing to do with tobacco. Many antireg. causes - e.g. for Calif's prop. 13
Philip Morris "philanthropy" in 1995 - money for all kinds of think tanks, grassroots antitax orgs, etc - "Von Mises cultural foundation" (v.m. was Austrian aristocrat, founder of modern neoliberalism, bent on minimizing govt intervention)

22:28 The "thousands of scientists doubt global warming" claims - they're not *climate* scientists. Plus a petition is preposterous, it's a political tool. Science proceeds by collecting data, conferences, discussion/review by peers, publication in journals. If you want to know what the sci evidence is, you need to go to the peer reviewed literature - as N.O. did.
All studies done of it (peer reviewed climate science literature) come to same conclusion - that in the peer reviewed science literature, essentially there's no debate that climate change is underway and largely driven by human activities. But you wouldn't know that from the way it's covered in the press.

While the original GMI founders are dead, a new generation has continued - incl willie soon at harvard smithsonian observatory.
Greenpeace recently looked at his funding - $1m for research from fossil fuel industry

Because it's become more overt, it's easier to follow the $$

Two tobacco PR strategies
1. met w hill & knowlton - strategy: challenge the scientific data
2. targeting the media, with fair & balanced "present both sides" argument

even edward r. murrow was suckered in, presented a "balanced view" of tobacco

Supply side; provide "informational" materials to journalists.
"Demand side": put pressure on journalists - say "fairness doctrine requires..." - shockingly effective, it tapped into journos' own value system
(take those things & exploit them)

Lion's share of blame goes to the perpetrators. But journos could have asked tough questions, and scientists could have stood up. As for the public: we'd prefer the perpetrators' story was true, it's the good news story.

31:40 Scientists: "we knew it was garbage so we just ignored it" - that strategy is not effective. They didn't want to get dragged into the mud.

But if no cogent response, the public thinks there's something to it.

Oreskes, Stanford, April 2008, snippet

2011-08-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

Sadly, we seem to have lost smartenergyshow.com, on which the April 2008 talk was hosted, to spammers; but from an archived page, here's the transcript of Naomi Oreskes's response to the Q "Now that you know all this [about how they operate], what do you do about it?"

"...We all have to be a lot smarter about this issue and come to a deeper appreciation of what we've been up against.

I think a lot of us in the scientific community (and I say this partly from my own experience) have been raised with what I call a "supply-side" model of science - we think that it's enough to just do scientific work, and that if we do the work and establish the facts that somehow that will trickle down to the places where that knowledge is needed.

Or you can think of it as a diffusion problem - that if we create this high concentration of knowledge in great universities like Stanford, then the osmotic pressure will cause it to diffuse to the areas of low concentration of knowledge.

I think we see that that just doesn't work - the world of humans doesn't work according to the laws of diffusion and osmotic pressure. So we have to be more active - I think that the scientific community needs to embrace the idea that it isn't enough just to do the research, that you actually have to think about ways and means of communicating it and getting it out there, and to understand that when you do, it's not just that the public are ignorant or foolish or whatever, but that there's actually active resistance, that you have forces working against it; and you know, there's a lot at stake in these debates.

There was a lot at stake in the tobacco industry; and it wasn't just the tobacco industry that had something at stake, it was also our own government - the U.S. government received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from sales of tobacco, and the U.S. government massively subsidized tobacco [unintelligible] and marketing in the U.S.

Well, the U.S. government also subsidizes the petroleum industry, right? So there are big, big structural issues at stake, and I don't think that the scientific community alone can solve this problem. But I think that by being a little more clued in about some of the political issues and some of the ways that the resistance campaigns work, it can help us be a little bit smarter about how we do communicate what we know."

Transcript of Scott Denning's Heartland talk/challenge

2011-08-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

Transcript of the YouTube video of Scott Denning's challenge ("the political right has been AWOL in proposing effective solutions...the world needs Heartland, Heritage, AEI...") to those attending the Heartland Institute's summer 2011 climate conference.
This (2011) talk was blogged by Bart, In It, Skeptical Science, Yale Climate Media Forum; and Denning's 2010 talk was blogged (and criticized, in comments) here.

Introduction by attorney James Taylor (Senior Fellow, Environment Policy, Heartland Institute):

"... Dr.Scott Denning however is a serious climate scientist and a very impressive one at that. Dr, Denning is a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. He is also an editor for the Journal of Climate, and a project scientist for the NASA carbon cycle initiative. He has very frequently published in the peer reviewed scientific literature regarding carbon dioxide topics."

Denning:

Thanks very much.

I have to say I find this business about the planets and the sun very interesting. I'm an amateur astronomer, I've been fascinated by that stuff all my life. I believe ...that the sun's energy is the primary source of the energy in the climate system, that heat warms things up and lack of heat cools things off; I'm a big believer in cause and effect.

So I'll tell you what I'm gonna say here, & I suspect some of you won't like it, but that's why you invited me.

First of all, everybody in this room understands how climate works well enough - arguing about the details is just not worth your time
Secondly, the climate will change a lot in the next generation and policy *will* be enacted according to peoples perceived needs & desires around that change - it won't necessarily be policy that I like, it almost certainly won't be policy that you like, but it's gonna happen anyway.
My belief is that the political right has been AWOL in proposing effective solutions, to what isn't just a U.S. problem, it's going to be a problem for everybody. The solutions are going to have to address the whole world, not just a state or even a whole nation.

The world needs you - the world needs Heartland, Heritage, AEI - needs the political right to propose realistic solutions; otherwise the solutions we get are going to be unacceptable solutions and ineffective solutions.

It's tough to argue with this stuff, right?

Ever wonder why...
* the day is warmer than the night
* summer warmer than winter
* Miami is warmer than Minneapolis
you know why that is, you don't have to argue the details, you don't need a graph, you dont need a PhD.

You know that heat in minus heat out gives you change in temperature
there's just no 2 ways about it, it's consistent with everybody's experience, You do not want to be on the side that argues against this.

5 simple facts for you - see if you agree with these
* Today is Friday
* Billions of people need more energy to lift themselves out of abject poverty ...this is true, this is a fact
* Burning coal, oil, gas produces CO2
* CO2 emits heat - this is a measurement, this has been known for 150 years, Al Gore didn't invent this, anybody can make the measurement, anybody can get precisely the same result.
* And heat warms things up.
All these 5 things are true; it doesn't matter what you think, they're true anyway.

So let's talk forcing & feedback
Doubled co2 would add 4 watts/m2 24-7, night&day, winter&summer, pole to pole for the rest of your live - that's w/o the feedback, that's the forcing.
Producing a decent standard of living for those who are currently poor will require 4x co2 this century if we choose to do it with coal.
In 20th century we had a 30% increase in CO2; in 21st we'll go to a 400% increase.
You can argue about the sensitivity, you can argue about whether the 30%
increase produces a half a degree or a degree or whatever, it doesn't matter - that's the details that it's not worth your time to argue; if you believe that heat warms things up, a 400% difference is a big difference to you too.

You should be extremely skeptical of anyone who claims to find 8w/m2 of negative feedback in the climate system. Why? because you should have listened more carefully to Schmidt, Scafetta, and know that a watt per square meter here or there extended over any period of time produces a lot of climate change - it has every time through the geologic record.
If it weren't sensitive to watts then the climate would never have changed.

If you think the climate has ever changed in the past, then you acknowledge that the climate can change, and if the climate can change when heat goes in, the climate will change when heat goes in - you dont want to be on the other side of that argument

Now something you may not know, that you may want to contest -
My research - I study the fate of the co2, where does it go.
"Budget" of the world - think of it as a big bathtub -
800 billion tons of carbon in the atmosphere today.
Burning fossil fuels puts in about 8 billion tons every year
Almost all the newspaper talk is about the 8 billion tons that goes into atmosphere every year

The heat emitted by the CO2 doesn't come out of the faucet, it's emitted out of the water in the tub - the more in tub, the more heat comes down.

We're currently very lucky, just half of what goes into the tub stays in - since there's a couple of leaks
1. Ocean dissolves some CO2 by the exact same chemistry that makes beer fizzy.
2. Land plants growing faster than they're dying, & that's sucking co2 out of air to the tune of about 1/4 of all the fossil fuel emissions - a wonderful thing, would that it would go on forever, would that it would increase - that would be just ducky.

The global carbon cycle has air in it, has ocean in it, & it has land in it.
The humans are burning stuff, putting in 8 billion tons/yr, only 4 sticks.
The land & ocean exchange a lot of co2 with the atmosphere - in fact these exchanges are enough that if they weren't in balance, they'd suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere in about 6 years and everything would die, so we're awfully glad they're in balance.

Where's all the CO2 gone?
About half the missing C is going into the oceans
On land, stuff is growing faster than it's dying
How does that work?
* co2 fertilization
* nutrient fertilization - miracle-gro on tomatoes
* land use changes - we've heard of tropical deforestation, but - new england stone walls found as kid, came from when it wasn't forest - as those trees have grown back, they've pulled C from atomosphere.
* response to changing problem - shrubby woody plants now growing in the arctic

If you think about it though, once you're done putting this stuff on the land, you're done - that's as much C as you can fit on the land,
you're not going to be able to grow rainforests in the Sahara, in Greenland...
What about the oceans? they're the big reservoir.
Trouble with oceans they are strongly stratified - surface water is warm and buoyant, it floats like a raft.
The cold water is heavy & dense, sits on the bottom. it's inky & black, even in Tahiti - icy, black cold water, not touching the atmosphere, except as it mixes back up - that water doesn't know we're here yet, hasn't seen the ocean in 1000 yrs, doesn't have any anthropogenic chemistry in it. ... It takes about 1k yrs to turn this over.
We know this because we've been there - people have gone out across the world's oceans & taken samples to the bottom w/ these interesting rosette bottles;
(Map) Each line composed of bunch of dots,
each dot is a place where water's been taken all the way to the bottom of the ocean & the chemistry's been done - we've got 3-D chemistry of the world oceans, these samples show the fossil CO2 in the world oceans & we can see it's only penetrated into the very top water that's warm and buoyant & floats to the top; it takes 1k yrs to turn the ocean over once - the mixing time's as long as from now back to William the Conqueror.

So this means we have a long tail on the co2 that China & India will put into the atmosphere in our lifetimes

There is a myth in the media, in the newspapers, that almost everybody believes, that when we reduce or stop burning fossil fuels, the co2 will go away & things will go back to normal
I'm sorry to tell you but the physics just doesn't agree with that.
The trouble is that the co2 hasn't risen much since the indust revolution,
just 30%, but when China and India increase the standard of living of their people...the co2 is going to increase a lot -

and that co2 is going to stay in the air for thousands of years, so we're going to be stuck with this for a long time.

Simple facts again:
1 CO2 emits heat
2 CO2 stays around 1000s of years
3 Extra heat warms things up
4 Earth's climate has always changed because of extra heat - no reason to believe that this time will be different.
The physics basically doesn't care what you believe. People will wind up adapting to this - they always have, they always will; but if you don't help us to figure out how to adapt, we're going to , wind up adapting in ways that are unacceptable to you

Some examples of bad or ineffective policies that might be enacted to deal with this problem -
1 Lightbulbs - wont take care of a problem that's gonna last for thousands of years
2 State/national level penalties
3 The government choosing winners/loosers
4 Fiddling with the details at the edges of this problem is not gonna cut it, not gonna solve anything, will harm people

Making people poorer is not gonna help, ok? - if this is what you want, keep doing what you're doing, because this is what's happening

What we need instead are *effective* solutions
We need solutions that'll provide a decent quality of life for billions of people on this planet. Those people are going to need energy - to provide for wealth, a decent amount of well being; and only a free market can bring this kind of change about, we are not going to get it from interventionist government picking winners & losers.

Who's going to advocate for these effective solutions? do you think Greenpeace will advocate for these solutions? is that what you're waiting for?
If free market advocates shirk their responsibility others will dictate the policy - is that really what you want?
When will you stand up and offer solutions to these problems? are you cowards?

To recap:
* Everyone in this room understands how climate works well enough.
* It is not worth your time to argue about the 3rd decimal point; you are wasting your time.
* Climate is going to change a lot in the next few decades, and policy will be enacted to deal with perceived needs.
* The political right has been AWOL in proposing solutions to these problems
* and the world needs *you* to be engaged. Thank you.

Who's really funding the Heartland Institute?

2011-07-18T19:03:00.001-07:00

We think we know who's funding Heartland from the info on sites like Media Matters, but we don't.

The foundation funding turned up by Media Matters is a tiny fraction of what Heartland is receiving - for example, in 2006 MM shows about $300k in foundation funding, just 12% of Heartland's reported contributions for the year. And these mystery donations are far from evenly distributed - 38% of Heartland's 2007 revenue came from just one mystery donor, who would have chipped in about $2million. *

If you'd like to look for yourself, you could see how much funding remains "unsourced" by comparing what Media Matters turns up for a given year, against that year's Heartland's IRS Form 990 reported revenue, which I've provided in rough form below:
(year, direct public support, gross amt rxd )

2009, 6.5mil, 6.785mil
2008, 7.6 mil, 7.78mil
2007, 5mil, 5.2mil
2006, 2.5mil, 2.75mil
2005, 4.25 mil, 4.5mil
2004, 1.77mil, 2 mil
2003, 1.55mil, 1.8mil
2002, 1.25mil, 1.55mil
--------------

*The "38%" donor info comes from an audit that got filed as part of Heartland's 2007 Form 990. The audit also mentioned what look to be rather generous (to someone other than a Heartland donor) lease payments of $1400/mo for a photocopier, an arrangement starting in 2003, and $850/quarter for a postage meter - rates which bring to mind those featured in the 1993 United Republican Fund "draconian memo" .

2011-07-19 update: not that it changes anything, but our 38% donor presumably gave via Donors Capital Fund (donor-advised, anonymous funding), which reported giving almost $3 million to Heartland in 2007 (pdf; scroll down near the bottom to see it).

Drawing distinction between policy and politics - cogently expressed where?

2011-07-17T11:09:00.001-07:00

Had a hyperpolitical friend visit recently, who - along with her hyper-apolitical local other friend - has a worldview that doesn't distinguish between politics and policy. Thus both of them see any hint of policy as inseparable from politics; so for the former individual, any mention of policy becomes a discourse on politics, and for the latter individual, any mention of policy is anathema.

This is a problem.

Where is the distinction between the two drawn, well? (and what search parameters can I use to find it in future, by Googling?)

(I did try [to sketch out the distinction myself] last year; but as "cogent" is not my middle name...)

Why it's important to speak up about misleading climate info in the media - an anecdote

2011-06-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

For media executives who aren't climate savvy, the simplest way to assess the quality of their climate science programming is to consider the nature and distribution of complaints received. When nobody - or only one person - has complained, the media exec takes this to mean there's no problem.

Ben Santer, re IPCC involvement by those asserting "groupthink"

2011-06-22T10:20:00.000-07:00

There's IPCC involvement, and then there's IPCC involvement. A clarification from Santer.

But (June 28 update) it turns out it's not this clear cut, as several delayers including Richard Tol have in fact been lead authors (link). (So read with salt...)

When in May I asked Ben Santer how a listener should assess claims of IPCC (and NAS, etc) "groupthink", he'd said:

"These are not meetings, these are not organizations prone to groupthink... the meetings that go on in putting together these assessments are tremendously argumentative"; "people who make those ["groupthink"] claims in my experience have no direct knowledge of these organizations - have not participated in these scientific assessment processes, have not participated in these meetings that go on in developing these assessment reports..."

Yet "groupthink" claimants Pat Michaels and Judith Curry are listed as having been IPCC expert reviewer and contributing author, respectively; and others have also been involved.

I asked Santer how the involvement of Michaels and Curry squares with his "have not participated" assertion, and he clarified that the bar for direct experience in the IPCC assessment process is higher than theirs:

"Typically, Contributing Authors do not attend IPCC Lead Author Drafting Meetings - which is where most of the hard work on the development of IPCC Reports takes place. I doubt whether Dr. Curry has ever attended an IPCC Lead Author Drafting Meeting. Contributing Authors often attain "Contributing Author" status simply by submitting research for assessment.

My understanding is that an "Expert Reviewer" is asked to provide review comments on drafts of one or more chapters of an IPCC Report, but the mere provision of review comments does not magically convey familiarity with the difficult process of developing reports. As in the case of Contributing Authors, Expert Reviewers typically do not attend IPCC Lead Author Drafting Meetings.

My bottom-line:
Submitting research for assessment, or providing review comments, does not automatically mean that one has detailed knowledge of IPCC rules and procedures, or direct experience of the difficult process of developing IPCC reports."

Unfortunately though, we'll need to view this criterion as just one move in the Tree Lobsters "delaying climate action" game; where the delayers' countermove is to find and trumpet *someone* from these assessment meetings who'd be willing to say, honestly or no, accurately or no, that they saw groupthink.

Nevada County climate teaching - Seven Hills Middle School

2011-06-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

Part of a series I've been doing as time and opportunity allow.

Yesterday I spoke with Richard Thomas, on what his students - 6th graders at Seven Hills Middle School - learn about climate change, and about renewable and non-renewable sources of energy.

He said the textbook they'd used (McDougal-Littel) has a section on [atmospheric] carbon levels; they spent time talking about that & why atmospheric CO2 is rising. The book also has a section on energy, renewable & not.

They did some experiments with lights showing how energy that's used to light incandescent bulbs disappears as heat; and, using the Kill-A-Watt energy meter, demonstrated the power used by different forms of lamps.
He said his students loved seeing a bicycle generator and learning about how generators create electricity.

They also talked about lifestyle choices, and how they relate to a habitable future.

I asked whether he'd addressed whether the current warming was human-caused vs. natural; he said he'd left open the possibility that natural cycles were operating as well.

Paging Steven P. Baer, who headed top Heartland funder the Seid Foundation and also United Republican Fund

2011-06-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know how I can get in touch with Steven Baer, or BaerMarkets? I've tried phoning&emailing institutions&people who ought to know, and calling a phone number that just rings.
(please leave your answer/suggestion in the comments; they're moderated, & I won't publish it.)

Nevada County climate teaching - Sierra College, INT-1

2011-06-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Part of a series I've been doing as time and opportunity allow.

In Spring 2011, Sierra College offered an interdisciplinary "human impact on the environment" class; it was taught by DeCourten and Day. I sat in on DeCourten's climate science lectures (but didn't see the subsequent "policy" ones, so my understanding could well be incomplete.)

DeCourten is an excellent lecturer and IMO conveyed the science quite well. But there were a few "big picture" pieces that weren't conveyed in the lectures I heard, pieces that IMO the students needed to hear, to be armed to make informed decisions as citizens; such as:

The bathtub metaphor; (this might have been covered; I need to check my notes)
The "acting as citizen vs. acting as consumer" distinction;
Resources for continuing education - so that, when a relative pipes up saying "I heard [misleading climate-related statement]", the students will know where to go, to find out if it's true. Here are 3:
a. The EPA's "Response to comments" on its CO2-endangerment findings debunks a lot of climate myths, at
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html#comments
b. SkepticalScience.com covers similar territory, plus it gets updated. (However, it's a nongovernmental, nonofficial site)
c. The IPCC "scientific assessment" report is good & pretty readable, at least the "Detection & Attribution" section (is climate changing, & what's causing it) - at
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter9.pdf
(some climate communicators still insist that scientists have no way to tell how much of global warming is us, & how much is natural; this chapter addresses that.)
Signal vs. noise, and problems with the "climate is complex" meme - though true, it can mislead people into assuming that "global warming is complex" (which implies that focusing on it won't yield much understanding) ; you might point out that sometimes things that are complex *in detail*, become simple at the "big picture" level, since the "detail" variations cancel each other out - e.g. we can't predict the temperature on a particular midwinter day very well, but we *can* predict that winter will be cooler than summer, just by knowing how the sun's angle changes between winter & summer.
i.e. the average value (signal) is easier to predict than any one particular measurement (mostly noise); global warming is the signal, short-term daily temperature variation is mostly noise.
(So climate models - which are projecting the signal (and aren't sensitive to initial conditions) are inherently _more_ reliable than weather models, which are predicting the "noise" (and which are *very* dependent on initial conditions).)
*Multiple* lines of evidence indicating GHG-related trouble ahead, not just climate models. Mainly, there's also the paleo record - e.g. the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are *now*,
"Global temperatures [were]... estimated to be 3 to 4°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures" and "Sea levels were around 25 metres higher than current sea level". ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=695 )
The "where there's smoke, there's fire" heuristic does not apply to global warming communication directed at the public. (yes there's still a public controversy on the basics, but *not* a science one.)
To understand the "muddying the waters" effect, students can watch (UCSD Provost) Naomi Oreskes' UC TV talk here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
Uncertainty cuts both ways; future effects could just as easily turn out to be worse, as better. In risk management, uncertainty is cause for greater concern, not less.
Policy (but again, these parts may well have been covered in the lectures I didn't attend) - costs, relative effectiveness, and the #1 barrier to effective policy
a. Predicted cost of regulations *always* turns out to be an overestimate, due to market incentives rewarding innovation. (e.g. cap & trade to solve acid rain)
b. Personal footprint-reduction action vs policy action - the latter can solve it, the former can't.
c. Krugman's "building a green economy" NYTimes Mag. article
(especially with respect to political will -
"We have a good sense of the costs — and they're manageable. ..... All we need now is political will." - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html )

Nevada County climate teaching - Bear River High School

2011-06-14T18:22:00.000-07:00

Part of a series I've been doing as time and opportunity allow. Also: suggestions for improvement.

This "Nevada County climate teaching" series would have been better if I had...

...not also been wearing my "you may want to display this informative poster" hat, in communicating with (some) teachers; it felt as though the poster-pushing detracted from the journalism.
...asked a standardized set of questions; e.g. "are students in your class told what the scientific consensus is, on the existence and major cause of climate change, and what underlies that consensus?"
...found a way to contact the students, to corroborate what was taught; and to find out what, in fact, students did take away from the course(s).
...examined all the textbooks' relevant sections.

Bear River:

On March 21 I spoke with science teacher Jennifer Weir, who teaches regular biology, Advanced Placement biology, and an Advanced Placement environmental science class; I asked what her students learn about climate change.

Biology (Weir):
"Climate change is a component in the biology curriculum, but there's not a lot of depth; I cover the traditional state standards. It might come up in ecology & we might talk about global issues; there is a short section in the textbook [Holt Biology, a version from around the year 2000, so some content isn't current, though global warming is listed there.]"

"The AP Biology class has an ecology component but the AP courses have a very structured curriculum to follow, so that (ecology?) isn't a major part of the course."

Environmental Science (Weir):
The textbook for this class (Environment; the science behind the stories, by Jane Wiscott & Scott Brennan) has an entire chapter on climate change - "Human impact on the planet is a ribbon throughout the entire book." This class discusses fossil fuels, and watches some videos about peak oil.

I asked Weir what message she sends to the students about the causes of the recent century of warming, whether it's due to human or natural causes. She replied,

"I leave the evidence up to the kids"; "but the curriculum, & the way we present the information, is that greenhouse gases are increasing in atmosphere, and we're showing the chemistry on the board, of where it's coming from.

I would prefer that I don't ever say that man is doing it, I prefer that I present the scientific evidence to them and I help them draw their conclusions, rather than me standing up in front of them & saying we are the cause; which would cause some kids to completely shut down.... you've got to help the kids to see the preponderance of data, & then the kids feel comfortable with it."

Integrated Science:
Weir said there's no real earth science class at Bear River, but there is Integrated Science, an elective that meets high school graduation requirements; it has an earth science component, and its teacher (who I have not spoken with) does cover climate change.

Weir wasn't aware of any classes using the CalEPA K-12 "Education and the Environment" modules, that were funded by a California state initiative passed in 2003 (and whose climate change content had struck me as light on the big picture).

As for other teaching resources, Weir said she used information & activities from various sources. Activities have included Graphing Climate Change (pdf, from the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute ) and parts of a set of greenhouse gas lab exercises (pdf) "based on activities in Operation Chemistry, and from Global Warming Activities for High School Science Classes, Rosenthal and Golden, 1991."

In her followup email Weir noted that state standards and university admissions requirements aren't set up to educate students about climate change and then offered suggestions for improvement, saying:

"We have limited instructional time and we are bound by the state standards that we are required to teach and test. Unfortunately, climate change is not a standard of the Biology curriculum, Physics curriculum or Chemistry curriculum. It is only a stated standard in the Earth Science curriculum.

I think that if your agenda is to make climate change and global warming a required part of high school curriculum then you will need to lobby to change the science standards or to require an earth science course for graduation requirement.

Ironically, earth science course do not qualify as a CSU or UC (a-f) requirement for admission and therefore many students do not take the course. Lobbying to make this course an "a-f" requirement would also be effective."

Audio snippet - Ben Santer on what drives climate scientists

2011-06-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

58 seconds, Ben Santer on what drives climate scientists (spoiler: not money or world domination)
...prefaced by a Nevada County "man on the street" opinion

Begley's Newsweek cover story "Weather Panic"

2011-06-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's the cover story for the June 6 Newsweek.

Here it is at the Daily Beast; or at Newsweek under the title "Are You Ready for More? : In a world of climate change, freak storms are the new normal. Why we’re unprepared for the harrowing future."

("On November 12, 2010, The Daily Beast and Newsweek announced a merger deal, creating the combined company "The Newsweek Daily Beast Company."")

Update: See also: Heidi Cullen on tornadoes, extreme weather and ‘The C-Word’ (if subsequent ThinkProgress website revamps don't create further wholesale linkrot)

Standards & practices - what's legit., for editing audio interviews?

2011-05-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Is there a good writeup, on what sorts of audio edits are legitimate and what ones aren't?
(I'm not talking Breitbart tactics; my goal is to present the expert's words in such a way that they don't distract the listener from the content; yet leave the speaker's intent intact.)

What I've been doing: presenting, from an expert, information that I know (or think I know) that the listener could most learn from, preferably in an engaging form, in just a couple minutes.

But the "engaging form" aspect does entail obscuring some truths:

I edit out my own voice, since when out of practice I am decidedly inarticulate.

I edit out the speaker's ums, uhs, you knows, throat-clearings, and word & phrase repetitions; and, where/if the speaker speaks slowly, I've compressed the spaces between their words. (But doing so could be problematic, given that "The way we, um, talk sways our listeners")

I've thought about re-ordering their sentences, when they take a while to get to the point, so the point comes first and the justification second. (I don't think I actually did this, though.)

And in one place I think I removed an "I think" that prefaced an assessment.

Is any of this inappropriate?
(at what point does it become the equivalent of photoshopping a suit onto a guy in a photo?)

(Where it does get shady, though, is that if I were to interview a climate denier, I know I'd be reluctant to lavish this same care on the speaker's words; whereupon it'd become bias. )

In a long-form, live interview, these concerns&issues would become moot, but I don't yet have the chops for that - nor the airtime. I do plan to take the next radio station broadcaster training class though, at which point whole new vistas will, in theory, open up.

Audio - some Ken Caldeira interview snippets

2011-05-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping to get these snippets and further ones like them aired on my community's local radio station, which has a reach beyond its size.
(Caldeira spoke extensively with me earlier this month, so there are more to come from him & from Ben Santer)

All are less than 3 minutes long. And as always, feedback would be appreciated. (FYI, I am hoping to get recordings of local denizens talking/asking about climate, as snippet lead-ins.)

Caldeira-WhyIPCC-245.mp3 (why the IPCC SPM is best resource for climate info - plain English, science-based, all the countries & even Bush Admin. approved it word by word)
Caldeira-Strato-Strong-DeniersCantExplain-110.mp3 (Stratospheric cooling)
Caldeira-IHave5Minutes-MostEffectiveAction-056.mp3
(...systemic...)
Caldeira-DifferentView-141.mp3 (a way to view the climate problem that makes the case for action clear)

Ben Santer clarifies his "...legitimate debate..." statement from last fall's climate testimony

2011-05-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

I've heard some confusion locally about part of the conclusion of Dr. Benjamin Santer's testimony to Congress (link) last fall; specifically, Santer's having said "...there is legitimate debate in the scientific community about the _size_ of the human effect on climate...":

"As my testimony indicates, the scientific evidence is compelling. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that human activities have changed the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. And we know that these human-caused changes in the levels of greenhouse gases make it easier for the atmosphere to trap heat. This is simple, basic physics. While there is legitimate debate in the scientific community about the _size_ of the human effect on climate, there is really no serious scientific debate about the scientific finding that our planet warmed over the last century, and that human activities are implicated in this warming. "

The statement "...there is legitimate debate in the scientific community about the _size_ of the human effect on climate" could be taken to mean that we cannot tell how much of the warming so far is human-caused vs, how much is natural.

So I wrote Santer, asking, "Obviously there's no legitimate debate on whether this size [of human effect] is as low as 0%; so within what range would you say there *is* legitimate debate?"

Santer responded:

"Based on climate "fingerprint" studies (and on other lines of evidence), the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concluded that "most of" the warming observed over the second half of the 20th century was very likely due to human-caused changes in greenhouse gases. Work that Tom Wigley and I have been doing recently suggests that the IPCC's statement was very conservative.
[in the sense of underestimating size of the human GHG contribution and/or understimating its likelihood (*)]

"Even if we fully account for current uncertainties in numerical models of the climate system, and if we account for current uncertainties in our understanding of the historical changes in key climatic "forcing factors" (e.g., human-caused changes in well-mixed greenhouse gases, ozone, and aerosols, and natural changes in volcanic aerosols and solar irradiance), it is still highly likely that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases explain _more than 50%_ of the roughly 0.7 degrees Celsius surface warming since 1950. Indeed, the IPCC concluded that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases had probably caused _greater_ warming than the observed warming, and that this "greater than observed" warming was partly offset by the cooling effect of changes in sulfate aerosols.

Santer indicated that the claim "human GHG emissions caused less then half the warming (since 1950)" was not credible:

"Recently, Professor Patrick Michaels (in Congressional testimony of November 2010) claimed that human-caused changes in greenhouse gases explain less than half of the post-1950 warming. This claim [by Michaels] is not credible. Michaels arrives at this incorrect result by completely ignoring the cooling effects of sulfate aerosol particles."

Critique my Ben Santer "getting reliable climate info" intervew, please

2011-05-19T11:40:00.001-07:00

May 25 update: I've been told it'll air tonight, circa 6:10pm PDT, albeit in an even-further-edited (4m30sec) form.

Update #2: ...which meant that the editor (not me) needed to cut something, and - other than my verbiage, the removal of which didn't hurt a bit - what got cut was Santer's remarks explaining why it matters:

"Anyone who has kids, or grandkids, has some investment in the future; you really need to have some understanding of what the climatic shape of things to come is going to be like in the 21st century.

If you try to get that understanding from one person alone, or one source alone, you may be misinformed; and you may miss the opportunity to really have some say, in what kind of world you leave behind for your kids and grandkids. And that would be a great shame."

(May 30 update: FWIW, not realizing that someone else would be doing the editing-down, I'd edited the 6+min version down to 4m30sec in an MP3 available here (link).)
-------------

Folks, if you could provide harsh but constructive criticism, on a 6m20s audio interview (my first) with Ben Santer, about how citizens can get reliable information on climate change, it would be most appreciated.

It's meant for listeners of a small town community radio station.

Good suggestions so far (which I didn't incorporate in this piece, but will keep in mind for the future ones): add some music for intro/extro, put Santer's "anyone who has children, or grandchildren..." quote at the front, & do something about my (mildly) plosive P's.

Bookmarking "open thread" comments where I've solicited criticisms - Climate Progress (5/14 and 5/21), and RealClimate (here )

Not news, but Trenberth & Schmidt quotes, on how much of the warming has been human-caused

2011-05-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

I was talking with someone recently who's under the [incorrect] impression that climate scientists such as Kevin Trenberth think there's no way to tell how much of the last 50 years' global warming comes from human activities and how much from natural cycles.

(This misimpression likely stems from a confusion about what phenomenon is to be explained; a confusion between "climate disruption" (which could include an increase in extreme weather events - and which is not tractable, yet, to attributing to human vs. natural causes) and "global warming" (which is tractable enough to measure & to estimate its attribution to human-caused GHG increases; increases which are a prolonged kick to the system, that's expected to yield climate disruptions sooner or later.)

So yesterday I emailed Trenberth about this situation, & he responded giving his views on attribution to human-vs-natural causes (but for the last 110 years warming, not the last 50 (which AFAIK are more clear-cut since they have less-or-no solar-radiation forcing).
Emphases have been added.
KT said:

"I think there are issues with attribution [to human vs natural causes] and it [attribution] is usually very conservative and greatly underestimates the human influence. With regard to GMST [ Earth's global mean surface temperature], the observed warming is at least 0.8C, since 1900 say, and the max that natural variability can produce is probably about 0.3C and it would be a fluke if it were at the max. So the conservative number [for amount of warming due to human influence] might be 0.5 [degree C] but maybe it is over 1 [degree C] because natural variability has offset warming the past decade."

Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt has weighed in on the "last 40 years' warming" attribution, saying (link):

"Over the last 40 or so years, natural drivers would have caused cooling, and so the warming there has been … is caused by a combination of human drivers and some degree of internal variability. I would judge the maximum amplitude of the internal variability to be roughly 0.1 deg C over that time period, and so given the warming of ~0.5 deg C, I’d say somewhere between 80 to 120% of the warming. Slightly larger range if you want a large range for the internal stuff."

Next time I get to have a word with Rep. Tom McClintock about climate change, I'll have to ask him how he estimates attribution.

Related:
There's a 2007 IPCC graph showing the relative size & directions of natural & anthropogenic climate forcings; McClintock and others need to learn that "Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time; [and] humans are now the dominant forcing" - ( link )

How to find who's saying what, on science-aligned climate blogs

2011-04-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's helpful to get some context, on the ebb & flow of discussion and critiques on science-aligned (& typically - though by no means always* - more science-focused) climate blogs. You can do this with a Google custom search by going to bit.ly/w101search and typing in the text you want to search for.

Questions awaiting answers

2011-04-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Collecting these in one place...: (minor edits to improve wording, Apr 13)

Why would a "global warming complacency" 501c4's income exactly match a director's stock purchase amount? (when said director (also a director of EOG (Enron Oil & Gas)) had previously said the stock purchase was unrelated (link))
What's with the $345,791 spent for "contract labor" by AZ-based Idsos' Center in 2009? (and other Form 990 strangeness including, why won't SPPI's head say why he got $187k and a $60k bonus, from the Idsos? and how does Cenospheres ("serving the oilfield industry") tie in?)
Why is Cool It's filmmaker unwilling to substantiate the claim that people in the film lost their jobs as a result? (link)
I had some followup questions (that took me some days to come up with) after George Mason University's science literacy communicator James Trefil expressed distrust of all of climate science, leaving me speechless at the time. He made no promises to answer them, but I'd expect a prominent science literacy communicator would think it worthwhile, given the stakes (whether of wasted efforts, or of risking a civilization-damaging future).

Additions:

(added 2011-04-17) Why does Guidestar not have any IRS Form 990s beyond 2006, for Frontiers of Freedom (FoF, FofFndn, FofInc)? and why haven't phone queries to FoF yielded an answer? could it be related to the 2006 Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives?
May 19 update: I did speak to a human at FoF a few weeks ago; and came away with the understanding that they haven't filed 990s because their income's been low enough that they haven't needed to.

Why would a "global warming inaction" 501c4's income match a director's stock purchase amount?

2011-04-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

The 2009 IRS return for the 501c4 CO2 Is Green reports gross receipts of $752,000; curiously, group spokesman/director Leighton Steward (who's also a director of Fortune 500 company EOG Resources, formerly Enron Oil & Gas) had made a $752,008 stock purchase in June of 2009, about 6 weeks before filing papers for this group and about 10 days after registering the domain name for a companion 501c3, Plants Need CO2.

I've got an email in to Mr. Steward asking about this similarity.

$345,791 spent for "contract labor" by AZ-based Idsos' Center in 2009? Form 990 strangeness

2011-04-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

I'm quite curious about this and other aspects of the financial arrangements of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change...stay tuned.

Q&A with JamesTrefil, for SourceWatch - plus followup Qs

2011-03-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

April 6 update: the followup questions - IMO more important than the main interview Qs - have gone unanswered.

Here's the March 11 Q&A, for George Mason University professor and science literacy communicator James Trefil's SourceWatch page. It's complete (and on my part, somewhat repetitive), except for places where I was tongue-tied, which were mercifully (cravenly?) excised.

Some follow-up questions (not answered) come after the Q&A.

Q: What information sources would you recommend to the busy layman who wants to get the big picture about a field like climate science?

A: Climate Science is kind of an anomaly because it's become very politicized & I'm not sure there is a reliable source per se for that field - I think the best thing to do is to read many different opinions & try to weigh them in your own mind.

Q: Basically do you think that'd give someone a better big picture than listening...to the National Academy of Sciences or IPCC say?

A: Normally I would say yes, but because of the way this field has become politicized I don't trust anybody anymore, on any side of the issue.

Q: How important is it to science literacy, to be able to assess the credibility of information sources?

A: I spend a lot of time talking to judges about science in the courtroom, & this is one of the primary questions you get asked - how do you know who's a real expert, how do you know what to believe? There are lists of criteria that have been developed in the legal communty, that come over pretty well in the general public - for example, was this a result that was announced in a press conference or was it in a peer reviewed journal where other scientists have had a chance to look at it - that's a very important criterion; & *is there a scientific consensus & how do you know that, & if so, what is it - that has some weight, although science isn't decided by votes, experiments are what they are regardless of what people think they ought to be.

Q: Would you expect a science-literate layman to reach a view of the science that is at odds with that of working scientists in that field?

A: I can imagine it happening, but I don't think it'd be very common; the reason is that scientists working in the field have a lot of experience dealing with whatever the phenomenon is that you're talking about, and so you're going up against that, & with someone who doesn't have the experience, you'd normally think the person with the experience would win. The problem comes when you get a wide range of scientific opinions, as you do in the climate issues; then it becomes difficult for the scientifically-literate person to make a judgment; it's difficut for _me_ to make a judgment.

Q: What i've seen other people talk about is the credibility spectrum - there's laymen,there's experts, there's groups of esxperts, & the higher you go the more credible they become.

A: That's generally true provided you're dealing with a purely scientific issue, but once it becomes politicized all bets are off; & I'm afraid that's happened in the climate area. It hasn't happened in lots of other areas - in things like the relation between vaccines & autism, the science there is pretty clear.

Q: So, you don't consider that to be politicized?

A: Maybe in the sense that people are trying to make political things happen, but not politicized in the sense that the scientists are themselves - when I say politicized, I mean the scientists have become politicized.

Q: How do you think that happened with climate science - briefly?

A: It's just a matter that people get seduced by being close to power. And once they feel that their careers are on the line now, & they have to defend the point of view whether they think it's right or not.

Q: Who has expressed this view that they feel they need to hew to a party line?

A: When you get somebody & you're talking over drinks at night & it's not public, you get very different opinions about these things than you get in public pronouncements. But these are private conversations.

Q: So basically, there are people but nobody's willing to go public?

A: I was talking to the director of a major research center once & he said, "if I said what I really thought about global warming they'd make my life a living hell" - there's a strong wish not to get involved with that kind of stuff.

Q: There's no way for me to check that?

A: He doesn't want to get called, obviously.

---------------------
[Edited for clarity on Apr 8]
My emailed followup questions for Dr. Trefil are below. (No replies, but since none were promised, I'm not sure what the etiquette is here. )

FWIW, I brought up the interview, & asked how to follow up, in a RealClimate open thread (discussed between #144 and #172). And it is fair to call someone a doubter when they've said they don't believe anyone, right?

Doesn't the "Industry ignored its own experts on climate" NYTimes article rebut your "politicization" assessment?

Dr. Trefil, how would the scientists-vs-industry interactions
described in this NYTimes article fit with your view that climate
scientists are cowed and/or seduced by being close to power?
Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate
("...a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as
the [Global Climate Coalition] worked to sway opinion, its own
scientific and technical experts were advising that the science
backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be
refuted.")

Was the ["I can't say what I really think"] director of the major research center in your anecdote a climate scientist, or in some other field? (...[such as] meteororology)

[Re your]... statement that climate scientists are and/or seduced by proximity to power (or cowed by those who are), & that this is biasing the scientific results in this field. I'd like to find a way to evaluate this statement. [So, some further questions here:]
* Do you - or rather, your sources who say this - think this politicization is biasing what evidence gets published, or that it's biasing how the evidence gets interpreted?

*If it's biasing what evidence [ends up getting] published, my Q is, what [is the] evidence [that] is being suppressed? (Presumably, before the politicization fully took hold, such evidence was still being published in less rigorously reviewed journals? where can I find it?)

* If it's biasing how the evidence is [being] interpreted, what evidence supports thealternative, [in your view] more reasonable (but suppressed) interpretations - and what are these better interpretations? (If you don't know, & you're merely passing on the doubts expressed to you in private, don't you think it's worth getting to the bottom of this & understanding the nature of these doubts and the reasoning behind them? It is a supremely important issue to understand, right? since there's an enormous amount of investment, cost, profit and/or risk at stake)

* And if this is going on, surely some heavy-hitter tenured climate science professors would have the moral courage to stand up & share the actual picture? Who/where are they?

Nevada County climate teaching - Nevada Union High School

2011-03-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

Part of a series I've been doing as time and opportunity allow.

See also Nevada County climate teaching - Bitney Prep High School

I spoke today with Nevada Union High School teacher Anders Drageset, who teaches Earth and Space Science to sophomores and Physical Geology to juniors and seniors, on how he covers climate change.

Both courses "cover the same standards...The Geology class is just ramped up a bit (tougher tests, more in depth labs, etc.)"

Drageset said in lectures he covers greenhouse gases, their role in keeping the earth warm, then asks the students what happens if there's too little GHG? too much? they come up with the answers, then he points out what we've been doing, that we're producing more GHGs than are being absorbed; they discuss carbon sinks (trees, creation of oil and coal), and scales/timescales, and see that these sinks - particularly creation of fossil fuels - can't pull as much out of the atmosphere at the rate we're putting it in.

For films, they watch and discuss An Inconvenient Truth, & discuss how the process of peer review keeps the quality of science up. They also watch the BBC video Dimming the Sun, to see that the global dimming from soot & aerosols of air pollution have been holding down the observed global warming, and see the possibilities for sea level rise and release of methane hydrates.

Textbooks used: Tarbuck & Lutgens: a newer, high school edition for the sophomores' course, the college edition for the juniors & seniors.

Is climate change addressed in other N.U. courses?

Climate quiz questions

2011-02-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

Ideally in future, the quiz (and additions thereto) will have one post per question, perhaps at the (currently empty) blog ClimateQuiz.blogspot.com, or better yet, somewhere on SkepticalScience. But in the meantime, I wanted to get it up, and visible in a format other than flash cards. (Flash cards: multiple-choice, explain ; one-line rebuttals (Updated) of misinformation).

And don't miss Baerbel's more appealing quiz (blogpost, pdf)

Beware: Proofreading is needed, especially to ensure that questions align with answers.

Multiple choice

When "Mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow", where has most of the oak wood come from?
a) the oxygen in air
b) the carbon dioxide in air
c) water
d) humus in soil
e) minerals in soil
Fossil fuels are the carbon-rich remains of...
a) ancient plants and animals that didn't rot or burn
b) cosmic dust
c) chemical reactions of inert matter
Carbon dioxide (CO2) gets into the air from...
a) plant and animal respiration
b) burning or rotting plant matter
c) volcanos
d) burning fossil fuels
e) dissolved CO2 from the sea and other bodies of water
f) all of the above
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas. This...
a) is disputed by scientists
b) means that it warms the earth like a blanket, keeping it from losing heat to space
c) gives the sky its color
CO2 in our atmosphere is a trace gas; its concentration in the air is 387 parts per million, less than a tenth of one percent. If there were no CO2 in the air _at all_, earth's surface would become:
a) about the same temperature as now
b) 5 or 10 degrees F colder
c) "snowball earth", more than 60 degrees F colder and covered in ice
Since we started burning fossil fuels with the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 has increased by:
a) less than 5%
b) about 10%
c) more than 30%
This increase in atmospheric CO2 is:
a) partly natural, partly due to human activities
b) almost entirely due to human activities
There are natural carbon cycles - CO2 enters the atmosphere from sources like volcanoes, forest fires, and rotting wood; and leaves via sinks like plants, rock weathering, and oceans.
Think of atmosphere as being a bathtub - the tub level is the CO2 concentration, and CO2 comes into it through the faucet, and drains out through uptake by our trees and oceans. Currently, our emissions have increased the faucet flow by 2% (URL?), and natural absorption processes have increased the drain flow by half that, 1% (URL?). Outcome: the atmospheric CO2 concentration - the tub level - will:
a) decrease
b) stay unchanged
c) increase
Now say we decrease the faucet flow by 20%; the tub level will proceed to...
a) decrease
b) stay unchanged
c) continue to increase
Effectively, how long will the CO2 emitted by burning a gallon of gas continue to affect the climate?
a) days
b) months
c) centuries, plus 25% that sticks around forever
As of 2002, roughly what proportion of the historical GHG emissions - that will continue to affect the climate for centuries or longer - has come from the U.S.? Europe? China?
a) 1/3, 1/4, 1/12
b) 1/3, 1/3, 1/5
c) 1/4, 1/4, 1/4
d) 1/4, 1/2, 1/5
Other greenhouse gases besides CO2 are...
a) oxygen and argon
b) methane, water vapor and nitrous oxide
Before we humans, the earth has undergone cycles of warming and cooling. This means that...
a) humans cannot change the earth's climate
b) natural forces can also cause the climate to change
("Climate reacts to whatever forces it to change at the time...")
Are natural cycles causing the current warming?
Over many thousands of years, the earth naturally goes through various "wobbles" in its rotation and in its orbit around the sun. These natural Milankovitch cycles change how the sun warms the earth, producing a "solar forcing". Their cycle lengths vary from 21,000, to 400,000 years, with the strongest one for earth's climate being the 100,000 year cycle.
In the absence of humans, what would these cycles be doing now, to earth's temperature?
a) rapid cooling
b) rapid warming
c) v-e-r-y slow cooling (over thousands of years)
d) v-e-r-y slow warming (over thousands of years)
In the last 50 years, what % of the earth's warming is estimated to be due to human activities?
a) 10%
b) 50%
c) 85-120% (the number can be over 100% if it has to mask a cooling factor)
Volcanoes release how much CO2 compared to emissions from human activities?
a) under 3%
b) 40%
c) 90%
d) 170%
Why are we concerned about the measly one degree C of warming we've seen so far?
a) it's what it portends; this is the predicted signal just starting to emerge from the noise; there's more warming already "in the pipeline"
b) future global temperature rise won't be uniform and risks global climate disruption
c) look what's happening already, with glaciers, sea ice, & increased weather extremes
d) all of the above
When the earth warms, what % of the heat goes into the oceans, and what % into land and atmosphere?
a) 10% into oceans, 90% land+atmosphere
b) 50% into oceans, 50% land+atmosphere
c) 95% oceans, 5% land+atmosphere
Over the last decade, the atmosphere has continued to warm, but more slowly. Does this mean global warming has stopped?
a) no; the oceans have continued to warm
b) no; 1998 was an unusual year for well-understood ocean-circulation reasons (El Nino)
c) no; 10 years isn't a long enough time to be drawing conclusions. If we're going to say that GW stopped now, then we'd have to say that it's stopped numerous times in the past century too - yet it always resumed rising.
d) all of the above
e) none of the above; we can go back to burning oil and coal with a clear conscience.
If you want to interpret the global surface temperature data to say that global warming stopped in 1998, during how many times did global warming stop in the 20th century?
a) none
b) 2
c) 7 or more
During the last glacial maximum (when glaciers covered much of the earth) about how many degrees F was the earth cooler than today?
a) 5
b) 10
c) 20
How many of the last 10 years were among the 10 hottest years on record?
a) 3
b) 0
c) 9
2010, 2005, 1998, 2003, 2002, 2009, 2006, 2007, 2004, 2001
To have a 75% probability of keeping the temperature rise below 2C, how much of earth's known remaining fossil fuel reserves can we burn?
a) less than a quarter
b) about a tenth
c) 80%
Under "business as usual" (i.e., no regulations to reduce GHG emissions), about how likely is it that we can keep earth's temperature rise below 2C?
a) 25%
b) 10%
c) 80%
d) 0%
If we reduce our CO2 emissions by 20%, atmospheric CO2 levels will
a) decrease by 20%
b) decrease by 10%
c) level off
d) continue to increase
The last time atmospheric CO2 was at its current level (~390 ppm), sea level was
a) about the same as now
b) about 30 feet lower
c) 75-120 feet higher
When climate doubters argue that global warming isn't happening, one approach they use is to:
a) show a short time series of just a few years, rather than decades;
b) show a temperature record that's regional, not global;
c) focus on anecdotal temperature measurement imperfections to argue that there's a consistent bias
d) all of the above

Explain:

CO2 levels have changed before, and been much higher than now; why should we worry about it now?
A 2C (two degree Celsius) rise in temperature is how many degrees Fahrenheit?
Atmospheric CO2 is now about 390 ppm. Prior to 1960, the last time CO2 levels were even over 300ppm was...
How do we know the increase in atmospheric CO2 is our doing?
The atmospheric increase is only about half of the carbon we've been emitting; where are the other "sinks", where has the other half been going?
Natural sources of CO2 - rotting plant matter, etc - dwarf the CO2 from human activities, which is just a tiny fraction. How can this tiny fraction matter?
Why are individual events (Tennessee flooding, Amazon drought, Russian heat wave, Brazil flooding, Brisbane AU flooding) not specifically identified as absolutely being caused by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere?
What is the most obvious characteristic of climate during the 10k years of human civilization, compared to climate during the entire duration of the human species?
What's the danger of extra CO2 in the ocean?
Can we rely on these sinks (ocean, vegetation) to continue taking up half our CO2?
A molecule of water vapor is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than is a molecule of CO2. So why are we more concerned about CO2 than water vapor?
What is the difference between climate and weather?
CO2 is natural and abundant and essential for plant growth; how can it be pollution?
What sea life is expected to suffer with ocean acidification?
For how many years in a row has the average global temperature been warmer than the 20th century average?
"He was a registered Republican"..."He just didn’t think of [climate change] as a political issue at all." Who was this?
During the 2000s, what was the ratio of record-setting high temperatures to record-setting low temperatures?
What are 3 reasons why coal is the fossil fuel of most concern for global warming?
Roughly what % of climate scientists believe the last 50 years of global warming is significantly due to human activities?
What are 4 arguments for starting to cut emissions as soon as possible?
What are 2 arguments for delaying action as late as possible?
How do studies from antiregulation sources like the Heritage Institute inflate the cost of climate action?
By about what % of U.S. Gross Domestic Product do nonpartisan analyses generally estimate that proposed greenhouse gas reduction laws will impact the economy?
How did the actual costs of the cap-and-trade effort to solve acid rain compare with industry estimates beforehand
How do the actual costs of regulatory efforts typically compare with estimates beforehand?

Jump to answers (link)

No answers provided for Metaphors & Concepts.

Metaphors

How do these relate to climate change, climate science or climate policy?

Bathtub faucet/drain,
Bathtub waves
Credit card balance
Credit card interest lagging debt
Insurance
Russian Roulette
Crude parachute vs. accurate altimeter
Chemo for lung cancer vs quitting smoking
Campsite
Traveling a bumpy road into the future, and the only seats we have are on the back of the wagon
Running low on wine at a party, where some guests newly arrived
Freezer door left open
Car toward a cliff in the fog

Concepts:

How do these relate to climate change, climate science or climate policy?

Sea level rise vs. encroachment
Using vs doing science
Charney sensitivity vs earth system sensitivity
"In the pipeline"
Acting as a Citizen vs. Acting as a Consumer
Statistical tests - significance and power
Feedbacks, tipping points
Who benefits, who is harmed, who votes
Discount rate
Externality
Race to the bottom
Climate models (& inherent bias re processes)
Effect of uncertainty on risk
Type I vs Type II errors

Again, answers (though not to Metaphors or Concepts) are here (link). For "answers" to metaphors & concepts, you might try doing a Warming101 custom search ( http://bit.ly/w101search )

Climate quiz answers

2011-02-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

Answers for the "climate quiz questions" post.

Beware: Proofreading is still needed, especially to ensure that questions align with answers.

Multiple choice answers

Answer: b); - (link)
Answer: a); - (link)
Answer: f); - (link)
Answer: b); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link) ("35 K after water vapor and albedo kicks in, and triggers a snowball Earth where the whole planet is ice covered")
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: b); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link) ("Therefore a time scale for CO2 warming potential out as far as 500 years is entirely reasonable (See IPCC 4th Assessment Report Section 2.10)."), (link)
Answer: a ; (29.3, 26.5, 7.6) (link) (Table after Baumert et. al., Chapter 6[2] Cumulative CO2 Emissions, 1850–2002)
Answer: b); - (link)
Answer: b); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: c ; ("somewhere between 80 to 120% of the warming" - Gavin Schmidt) (link)
Answer: a); - (link)
Answer: d); - (link), (link) (Hansen, inertia Environ. Res. Lett. 2 (April-June 2007) 024002) , (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: d); - (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: b); - (link) (graph)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: a); - (link)
Answer: d); - (link)
Answer: d); - (link) , (link)
Answer: c); - (link)
Answer: d);

"Explain" answers:

Answer: The rate of change is what's unnatural, & the fact that we have built civilizations that are adapted to the current climate (and sea level), and world population is bursting at the seams. Plus when CO2 was much higher than now, it was also much hotter. (link), Image: (link)
Answer: 2* 9/5, or 3.6F (link)
Answer: More than 650,000 years ago (link)
Answer: 2 independent methods - Carbon isotopes, & calculations of how much we're emitting. (link)
Answer: Ocean, forests and soil (link)
Answer: The natural sources and sinks balance; but like a small debt that goes unpaid, the human-emitted CO2 accumulates. (link)
Answer: Climate change changes the probability of an event - "climate trains the boxer but weather throws the punches" (link)
Answer: Unusually stable. (link)
Answer: Acidification - damage to small organisms like coral and plankton that need to create shells - (link)
Answer: No; they already show signs of slowing uptake. And vegetation is carbon neutral - releasing its CO2 after death - unless sequestered. - (link)
Answer: CO2's atmospheric lifetime is centuries, while water vapor rains out within days. And water vapor is a feedback, CO2 is the control knob, or the transistor - a higher-CO2 atmosphere creates warmth, which holds extra water vapor, that produces further warming. - (link)
Answer: "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get"; when measured by temperature, climate is typically averaged over decades. - (link)
Answer: It affects temperature and acidity, too much or too little is uncomfortable. Horse manure is also natural and (in some areas) abundant... (link)
Answer: Plankton and corals (link)
Answer: 34 - (link)
Answer: Charles David Keeling, climate scientist who discovered the Keeling Curve (of increasing CO2 year by year in our atmosphere) (A Scientist, His Work and a Climate Reckoning ) (link)
Answer: 2:1 (link)
Answer: There are large reserves; it's used in large (point source) power plants that present a clear target for effective impact(link); and being high-carbon, coal emits more CO2 per unit energy (BTU) than oil or natural gas (link)
Answer: 97% (link)
Answer: The sooner we start changing course, the less abrupt the transition;
The sooner we start changing course, the more likely we'll succeed;
The sooner we start changing course, the sooner we'll innovate solutions - right now. uncertainty on action discourages investment in green energy technologies;
The sooner we start changing course, the less likely the need for draconian efforts that curtail our freedoms
More energy independence means less funding for Middle Eastern terrorists;
Answer: Old people can stick the young and middle-aged, and their descendants for generations to come, with their bill - (link)
Profits in the fossil fuel industry can continue unabated;
Answer: By doing cost-benefit analyses that only estimate the costs, and ignore the financial benefits (which, for energy efficiency efforts, can be substantial - (link)
Answer: 1% or less - (link)
Answer: Less than 1/4 of the prior estimates - (link)
Answer: Typically less than 1/2 of the prior estimates - (link)

Climate poster(s)

2011-02-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

Below are references for the two climate poster variants - the relatively quoteless "Science of Climate Change" one (low-res version here), and the more exhortatory "act now" one (low-res version here).

The latter poster is 44x32.5 inches and (as of Feb 11) available for download as a (Photoshop format, I assume) BitTorrent file (smaller version available too) at:
http://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/10619/Global-Warming-Poster
(many thanks to Mr. Neven who put it up!)
Caveats: 1) I emailed Johann Rockstrom some time back asking for permission to use his "10,000 years of grace" TED talk graph (upper left), but didn't see a reply; 2) the SkS poster at lower left is still an (AFAIK) unpublished draft; 3) assuming the file is a .psd, you may want to ask your printer to upsample it (to 288 dpi) before printing; 4) I'm a bitttorrent luddite so have not myself seen/fetched it so cannot vouch first-hand for its contents.

March 9 update: Added the variant without the right sidebar quotes (so perhaps better for classroom display), "The Science of Climate Change"; low resolution version can be seen here (link). If there's interest...?
March 17 update: added a low-res version of the "with quotes" poster, that'll let you actually read the quotes.
------------------------

References for the poster's quotes and graphics:

"In my thirty years as a meteorologist, I’ve never seen global weather patterns as strange as those we had in 2010. ... bequeathed to our children a future with a radically changed climate that will regularly bring unprecedented weather events..." - Jeff Masters (link) (added to poster Feb 10)
Humanity's 10,000 years of grace (graph) - Johann Rockstrom TED talk Let the environment guide our development
"8000 years ago, we didn't have megacities near the shorelines. Nor did we have cities in places like Phoenix or Las Vegas. ..." - Michael Tobis
Carbon Dioxide Variations (graph) - Robert Rohde
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (graph)
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels ..." - Aradhna Tripati
"The models have always had kind of a stodginess to them..." - Michael Tobis
Ratio of recordsetting highs to recordsetting lows, by decade (press release with graph)
Arctic sea ice loss compared to model predictions (link)
Temperature anomalies, 1920-2010, NASA GISS data - graph modified from Yulsman
How we know we're causing global warming - draft version of a poster from SkepticalScience
"The reality of climate change is that it is a war against the young" - Tim DeChristopher
More than 50% reductions needed by 2050 to respect 2°C climate target (graph) - Meinshausen et al.
Facts + Values = Action -- Steve Easterbrook
"You do: everything you can to increase public demand for significant and immediate policy action to combat global climate change." - Greg Craven
"We know how to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. We have a good sense of the costs - and they’re manageable. All we need now is the political will." - Paul Krugman
"If you value your liberties, act sooner rather than later." - Michael Tobis channeling Joe Romm
"The radicals on climate are those who are willing to double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and just see what happens." - Bill McKibben
"Act as citizens, not just as consumers" - link
"The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and goodwill would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.” ~ Edmund Burke
"If one goes against the scientific community when the stakes are so high, one needs extraordinary certainty, not just uncertainty and confusion. Otherwise the position is deeply irrational." - Michael Tobis
"If humans weren't here and we didn't care about anything that lives here, if this were a video game, I'd push the button and see what happens, because it'd be really exciting; but it's not a video game." - Richard Alley (video)
"It's 3:23 in the morning..." - Drew Dellinger

Permalink: tinyurl.com/ClimatePoster2011-02

Rough review of Henson's 2008 Rough Guide to Climate Change

2011-01-08T10:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to peruse a copy of Robert Henson's Rough Guide to Climate Change, which has been lauded by respected folk in the climate blogosphere - Weather Underground's Jeff Masters going so far as to license and adopt its big picture summary, calling the book "a comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide that presents an unbiased view of the important issues" and saying, "If I were teaching a course on climate change at the high school or introductory college level, this would be the text" (which "does not read like a textbook ... presents the key issues in a straightforward, clear, and conversational manner.")

I'm a climate dilettante compared to these reviewers, and I only skimmed the book, so I'm not the one to assess its more substantive content. But I did notice a few shortcomings toward the end; so - with the added caveat that I no longer have the book in hand, so am working from memory and a few notes - here they are:

First, while Henson covers the Boykoffs' work showing media "balance" bias in popular climate coverage, his section on Bjorn Lomborg seemed to suffer from this same "he-said-she-said" flaw; perhaps because this book came out earlier than Howard Friel's 2010 book detailing Lomborg's pervasive "reference abuse".

Second, the book's final, "what you can do" section was weighted heavily toward "reduce your personal footprint" actions, and was correspondingly light on the "build political will" actions that truly make a difference. I wish Henson had taken Steffen, Begley, McKibben and Craven to heart: "You do: everything you can to increase public demand for significant and immediate policy action to combat global climate change."

Third - and Henson's likely not alone here, I wish every author of a climate change book for the popular audience would point this out - the book doesn't say, or certainly doesn't stress, that basing one's assessment of a climate communicator's credibility upon his/her personal carbon footprint is misguided. The message these books send to communicators is "curb your footprint so people will listen to you", but as somewhat authoritative sources, these authors should also convey to citizens/listeners that a "what's your footprint" focus misses the point, that "build political will" actions are by far the most important (and thereby more 'virtuous'). The comparative ineffectuality of voluntary personal action alone becomes clear when you consider that “even with an 80% participation rate the strategy of ‘living poor’ isn’t working.” (*)).

This Rough Guide is very much a nitty-gritty book, so a systemic flaw of sorts is that of weighting - without sufficient stress on the big picture, for readers with motivated cognition the book gives them the rope to retain a skewed view of the science. E.g. while the book does mention how uncertainty's been abused by the inactivist contingent, this mention pales next to the numerous instances of uncertainty it also provides.

And I don't recall that the book addressed how uncertainty should weigh in our decisionmaking, beyond giving a "balanced", he-said-she-said account of what others have argued. (The most important message, IMO, being that “When the hypothesis at hand makes time valuable – when the proposition at hand, conditional on its being true, means there are certain things we should be doing NOW – then you’ve got to do your best to figure things out with the evidence that we have. ” (*))

So, in short, while I accept more informed reviewers' recommendations that this book addresses the science well, plus it appears to address the problems with press coverage well, and it sheds light on the denial industry efforts, nonetheless its own tendency toward "balance", coupled with its lack of stress on the big picture - particularly the big picture for personal action - leave me concerned that a detail-oriented reader who pores through it may continue to miss the forest for the trees.

I wonder how Tobis would review it...
(minor edits for clarity 2011-01-10)

Gore and sea level, via Seife and Proofiness, through Blur

2010-12-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

So - was it misleading?

Proofiness author Charles Seife called the "sea level rise" part of An Inconvenient Truth cherrypicking, saying:

"There’s an outside chance that the sea level will rise by twenty feet or more if a very worst- case scenario occurs (such as the near-complete melting of the ice sheets in Greenland or West Antarctica). However, most serious estimates project a sea level rise much lower than [the 20 feet] Gore used."

This section - and its media reception - moved Joe Romm to excoriation: in The truthiness of Proofiness: Charles Seife’s new book gets it wrong on Gore and the media laps it up, Romm pointed out that Seife had accused Gore of misleading about the likely extent of sea level rise by supposing that Gore had meant the expected rise by 2100; whereas Gore had in fact not given a timeframe:

(Unofficial AIT transcript:) "...If Greenland broke up and melted, or if half of Greenland and half of West Antarctica broke up and melted, this is what would happen to the sea level in Florida. This is what would happen in the San Francisco Bay. A lot of people live in these areas. The Netherlands, the Low Countries: absolutely devastation. The area around Beijing is home to tens of millions of people. Even worse, in the area around Shanghai, there are 40 million people. Worse still, Calcutta, and to the east Bangladesh, the area covered includes 50 million people. Think of the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees..."

Romm's "Gore didn't say it" defense made sense to me, but then I read Kovach & Rosenstiel's Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload - in which (p. 99) they note, "One important element to look for is the use of implicit conclusions..."

So I re-watched the AIT trailer, keeping an eye out:

"...the Arctic is experiencing faster melting. If this (pointing toward snow-covered Antarctica) were to go, (image of section of ice crashing into water), it would raise sea level by 20 feet.... (animations of sea level rise swamping south Florida, Shanghai, Manhattan, etc ) ... Think of the impact of a couple hundred thousand refugees; and then imagine a hundred million."

So - if the trailer is representative of the film, IMO this piece is misleading, in providing visuals and the "imagine" thought experiment that together suggest a global, acute, Katrina-like cataclysm. But it's not misleading in the numeric sense that's the focus of "Proofiness", since the "20 feet" value is substantiated; an example better suited to the book would have been the "global warming stopped in 1998" deniers' canard.

SkepticalScience addresses An Inconvenient Truth here.

Q&A with David H. Freedman ("Wrong", "Lies,Damn Lies") on fallibility, credibility and climate science

2010-12-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

I sent a set of questions to David H. Freedman - author of the book Wrong: Why experts keep failing us--and how to know when not to trust them and The Atlantic article Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science - soliciting his views of how his tools should be used by citizens weighing what they hear about climate change, for a SourceWatch profile; here's the raw Q&A transcript.

Q: Is Wrong intended to increase the epistemological literacy of its readers?
(presumably yes, but since journalism is a discipline of verification...)

Response:
Yes, I do hope that readers will get some epistemological literacy boost from the book. However, I'd only claim to facilitate a narrow, limited and indirect one--namely, a gain in awareness of how tough it is to assess the reliability of knowledge, and that's really in my last two chapters. The book is mostly concerned with showing how unreliable expert knowledge turns out to be, and what makes it so, which isn't so much an epistemological issue as a more straightforward scientific and sociological issue: What pushes our smartest, most trusted sources of wisdom into being so much wronger than we assume they are?

Q: When experts don't give a "comprehensive and proportional" picture when communicating to the public, can this mislead the public?
(presumably yes, but since journalism is a discipline of verification...)

Response:
Absolutely, and the fact that the public ends up with a highly trimmed, disproportionate view of the expert product is a huge problem. Pinning down where comprehensiveness and proportionality get lost is a surprisingly tricky endeavor, though. The reflex is to blame it on the media, but the media can accurately respond that the comprehensiveness and proportionality are missing from the journal papers (for example) on which they typically base their stories. Researchers in turn can say that the comprehensiveness and proportionality are there, but they must be found between the lines, and that fellow experts understand this--they're not writing for the media.

Q: Typically, the Wrong book reviews and excerpts that I've seen have focused on the book's "experts gone wrong" parts, not on the "how to assess experts' credibility" rules of thumb.

Do you know why they chose the "experts gone wrong" focus?

What message will this focus send to readers whose only exposure to the book comes from a review?

Response:
It is frustrating to authors (I can only hope and assume I'm not uniquely victimized) that reviews often miss the mark even when simply describing what a book is actually about--in some case so blatantly that the only explanation that comes to mind is that the reviewer didn't read much or any of it. (I would cite the New York Times review of my book as a particularly striking and surprising example, though in the reviewer's defense he was clearly focused on the other book paired with mine in the review.) Now, it's certainly true that much of my book is taken up with exploring the ways in which experts are pulled off track, so a review that emphasizes that aspect of the problem isn't necessarily misleading. As to why a reviewer would choose to downplay or ignore the fact that I also spell out means for assessing expert credibility, I suppose it comes down to either the reviewer having stopped reading before getting to the relevant chapters, or the reviewer feeling that hearing about the trouble is more interesting than hearing about ways to mitigate the trouble. Clearly a reader who knows the book only through a review that has neglected to mention that there are ways to do a better job of assessing expertise is going to feel that the book presents a much grimmer picture than it actually does, and may assume that the book argues that knowing much about the world is a lost cause, which the book most certainly does not argue. On the other hand, I'd like to think that some large percentage of readers understand that reviews frequently misrepresent books, or present skewed pictures of them, but I may be kidding myself.

Q: What would you say to someone who interpreted Wrong's "experts are self-interested and typically wrong" message to mean that climate scientists' warnings on climate change should be dismissed or downgraded?

Response:
It has been interesting to see people on both sides of several controversial issues citing my book as supporting their point of view. Apparently, it's always the other side's experts who badly succumb to these problems. I don't actually say in the book that any scientific pronouncements should be outright dismissed, and indeed I warn against doing so. (I do come close to saying that breakthrough medical-study findings about nutrition, supplements and lifestyles might as well be dismissed, so rarely do they hold up.) I do recommend several categories of scientific finding that ought to be "downgraded," as you put it, credibility-wise, in that they are less likely to hold up than other sorts of findings. I also point out categories of findings that ought to be upgraded, in this same sense. One of the latter categories includes findings that emerge as a slowly building consensus of experts. I would put warnings on climate change into that category, suggesting it is a more-credible sort of finding. But having said that, I should note that this is far from iron-clad proof that it must be right--there have throughout history been scientific theories that have slowly built up a consensus and yet turned out to be wrong--scientists' views of what causes cancer, for example, have gone through several of these widely-subscribed-to dead ends. I should also note that climate-change findings sometimes, if to a lesser extent, share some of the characteristics of less-trustworthy expert findings, including being presented with insufficient qualifications and perspective. Personally, I suspect the climate-change warnings are fairly credible, but I'm not as confident of it as are most subscribers.

Q: If the intelligent (but busy) layman absorbs your book, then quickly considers the various sources & back-and-forth arguments on climate change in the news (or elsewhere) over the last several years,
What sources would you expect him/her to consider most credible for giving the big picture? and
What "big picture" would you expect him/her to come away with?

(not just the big picture on the reality of human-caused climate change, but also on degree of urgency for action now, & on severity & likelihood of harm to human ways of life this century.)

And if you're not comfortable answering this Q with specifics (or probables), would you say that it's a toss-up, what views a thinking person alert to Wrong's messages would end up holding, about the risk of climate change?

Response:
The most credible sources for this and really any issue would be those sources that are more or less in keeping with the long-term consensus, but that also take special troubles to spell out where this view may suffer from flaws, distortions and weaknesses--those problems are there, because they are always there with all scientific and other expert findings, and the only question is whether the expert is aware of them and willing to be open and honest about them. What's more, the most credible sources will do a good job in describing the limitations of what can really be clearly and definitely concluded from the data, as opposed to what inevitably rests on certain levels of interpretation and assumption. My father, a chemist, used to tell this joke: A biologist, a chemist and a physicist traveling by train in Scotland spot a black sheep. "Hey, there are black sheep in Scotland!" says the biologist. "No, there is at least one black sheep in Scotland," corrects the chemist. "No," says the physicist. "There is at least one sheep in Scotland that is black on at least one side." We need our experts to be more like that physicist, as unsatisfyingly fussy as the resulting advice might feel to us. Too few experts on either side of the climate-change debate, and really on any of the big issues facing us, fill the bill in that regard."

Andrew McKenna and Skydance Productions - oddly silent re Lomborg film ties

2010-10-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

Who funded the Bjorn Lomborg film "Cool It" (trailer, liminal transcript) that's due for release next month?

DCI Group ex-VP / investment fund manager (along with DCI principals Synhorst and Goodyear) / political consultant / film mogul Andrew J. McKenna Jr. isn't talking - and the word from Skydance Productions, the "independent film finance company" for which McKenna is Chief Operating Officer, is hushed, mumbled, and looking more and more like a stonewall.

The question:

Has Skydance - or any other entity that Skydance's officers are involved with - been an investor in the 1019 Entertainment film about Bjorn Lomborg called "Cool It"?

The runaround:

Monday: Emailed Skydance CEO Ellison, asking the question. No response.

Tuesday: Phoned Skydance; the woman who answered told me "send your question to info at skydance.com and it'll be answered." I did; it wasn't.

Wednesday: Phoned again; woman (Shannon) said "I'll pass along the message". I asked "to whom?", she said she didn't know exactly, yet.
A few hours later I got a call from a woman at Prime PR, who said she was the spokeswoman for Skydance and no, Skydance had nothing to do with the film. I asked her for the name of the person at Skydance who'd told her this, she said she didn't know if she could tell me, "let me discuss this with my supervisor" or equivalent, and hung up. She sounded uncomfortable at hearing that I intended to write about the denial.
And she didn't call back; so this morning I called and left a message for her, which has not - yet - been returned.
Thursday: Called Skydance; Shannon said she had passed my message along & had nothing else to say & I should take it up with the PR woman.

Thursday late afternoon: Emailed and phoned Mr. McKenna, asking. (Sent the email to his presumed Skydance address, & made the phone call to the McKenna & Associates number in Virginia).

As of midafternoon Friday, I haven't gotten a response to either.

Any suggestions as to what I could try next - or could someone help shine a light here?

"The value journalists continue to provide in a 'disintermediated,' Net-enabled world ...is to continue to ask public figures the uncomfortable questions that they won't choose to answer on their own."- Scott Rosenberg

A "Holocaust skeptic" among Wegman report references?

2010-10-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

The author of one of the references in the fraudulent Wegman Report was a Liberty Lobby board member who wrote about psychic surgery and said Holocaust deniers "make a very convincing case".
(added 2011-10-31: Multiple attempts to reach Mr. Valentine for comment before publishing this piece were unsuccessful.)

The report's references - which were largely provided by a Republican staffer - include this paper by Tom Valentine:

Valentine, Tom (1987) “Magnetics may hold key to ozone layer problems,” Magnets, 2 (1) 18-26.

Valentine - who, from his bio, was the editor of Magnets - was the "miracle" editor for the National Tattler (link) and wrote about psychic surgery and fuelless engines. He also hosted a "black helicopters" radio show, Radio Free America, that was sponsored by the Liberty Lobby, a Willis Carto-run group to the right of the John Birch Society. Among its board members was Valentine, according to Michael Zahn in Far-right Group Gains On Air .Liberty Lobby Buys Role In Network, State Satellite Service (Milwaukee Journal - Google News Archive - Nov 19, 1989).
Zahn quotes Valentine:

"Valentine said his group was neither racist nor anti-Semitic.
...
Valentine told this reporter, "I assume you're Jewish. And because you're Jewish, you automatically say, 'Oh, these guys are anti-Jews and anti-Semites'... You Jews are giving yourself too much credit. You're not running the world and we're not afraid of you."

Some of Valentine's guests have declared that the Holocaust, the systematic extermination of Jews under Hitler. was a myth or a hoax. Valentine says those guests "make a very convincing case".

Paging Henk Tennekes (who's written for SPPI)

2010-09-24T12:57:00.000-07:00

See update below.

I need to contact Dr. Tennekes to ask him for more details about hybrid cars clogging carpool lanes, which I'm told was something he'd mentioned (link) as a "bad climate/energy policy" example. Robert Ferguson of SPPI said he doesn't have an email address for Tennekes, & the phone # I was given for him doesn't seem to work - though perhaps I'm just a bad international dialer - and I can't find any contact info for him online. (And I haven't yet had success getting his contact info from the person who'd spoken with him.)
Suggestions?
I'll try through his publisher, but if you have a more direct route...

"Journalism is a discipline of verification"

Update: Dr. Tennekes says he did not say hybrid cars were clogging carpool lanes, nor (specifically) that "a Prius carrying only its driver gets worse per-passenger fuel mileage than a Boeing 747 with only 90% seat occupancy" - but notes that his book compares (p.2) a 747 with a subcompact car, in a way that (IMU) would yield that latter conclusion.

"A 747 with 350 people on board [max 400] consumes 0.016 gallon per passenger-mile...A fully loaded subcompact car...(40 miles per gallon) manages 0.006 gallon per passenger-mile.
... flying is a relatively economical way to travel far."

Though - to get back to the basic q - what relevance an airplane-vs-Prius comparison has for local travel involving carpool lanes is questionable.
(also, re air travel - it does have other consequences beyond fuel usage)

Doris Matsui, the Smithsonian needs your help

2010-09-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

From what Congresswoman Doris Matsui has written about the Smithsonian, it sounds like we can count on her.

Representing the people of Sacramento, Congresswoman Matsui - who is on the Smithsonian board - "believes that climate change and global warming are two of the most perilous challenges facing America today." (link)

Yet climate destabilization blindness is the Smithsonian's middle name.

The new David H. Koch-funded Smithsonian Human Origins exhibit paints a cheery picture of climate change as the force that made us humans the adaptable species we are today - failing to mention that this was achieved by killing us through famine, cold and thirst - or to mention that the circa-20,000 year period of human civilization was marked by unusual climate stability.
In 2006, "An exhibit about climate change in the Arctic...at the Smithsonian Institution was toned down so as not to anger Congress and thus endanger up to a billion dollars in taxpayer funding…" (link)
When I visited last spring, the Smithsonian's "oceans" exhibit had next to no climate content, just a couple of interactive computer presentations that gave viewers the wildly inaccurate impression that personal "shrink your footprint" actions are, if anything, more effective than regulatory changes. (They're not.)

What is Congresswoman Matsui's view of the Smithsonian's treatment of climate change? Can she find out what happened with the Koch exhibit, and help ensure that it gets fixed?

As a non-constituent, I phoned her office to ask; I was told "you should try your own congressperson."
...who is climate delayer Tom McClintock.
I tried writing her, albeit with no response.

What is Doris Matsui's view of the Smithsonian? Googling Smithsonian site:matsui.house.gov was enlightening - here's her Jan. 2008 op-ed Historic Institution Focused on the Future :

"...The Smithsonian Institution has undergone one of the most striking transformations in its 161-year history. ... an ambitious and comprehensive reform of its oversight. We have cultivated a plan to create a top-to-bottom culture of accountability. ...the Smithsonian has publicly acknowledged its failures.... We moved quickly and decisively to begin to fix its problems, open its inner dealings to greater public scrutiny and install new management...avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest... ... the Board committed itself to vigorously implementing the recommendations [to fix weak oversight and management policies]... and to further review of the Institution. ... "sunlight is the best disinfectant."
... the Smithsonian accepted guiding principles that include operating as a public trust, following only the highest ethical standards, and conducting business with an increased ethos of transparency.The Board of Regents and the Smithsonian staff are committed towards implementing these principles in all areas of the Institution."

Glad to hear it. Now it's time to walk the talk. Will Doris Matsui and the rest of the Smithsonian board find out & then tell us how the Koch exhibit went so far off the mark, and fix it?

Each day it stays in its current form, the Koch exhibit dulls a fresh group of citizens into complacency.

("Humans evolved in response to a changing world. They adapted by evolving traits that helped them survive.")

Nevada County climate teaching - Bitney Prep High School

2010-09-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Part of a series I've been doing as time and opportunity allow.

Nevada County, California has two main public high schools - Bear River and Nevada Union - and several small ones, including Ghidotti Early College High School and charter high school Bitney College Prep.

Bitney teachers Amy Pugel and Chris Schneider told me they address climate change in Biology, Geology and (via film and student projects) Physics - and, in 2009-10, in a schoolwide presentation:

Last year...I was able to coordinate an assembly through ACE - the Alliance for Climate Education - that was presented to the whole school over at Sierra Mountain Coffee Roasters. This was a very engaging presentation, very professionally presented and appealing to all the students.
- Amy Pugel

Biology:

I touch on climate issues only briefly in Biology as part of the Ecology standards that discuss how humans impact biodiversity.
- Amy Pugel

Geology:

As part of the Geology curriculum, we talk about the greenhouse effect during our unit on atmosphere and climate. Students work in pairs to explore alternative energies (either renewable or nonrenewable) that would combat global warming. This project requires students to create a PowerPoint presentation of at least 8 slides that presents the alternative energy, describes the mechanism of operation, and discusses pros and cons. Students present these projects to their peers as part of the grade. We also watch An Inconvenient Truth and students complete a discussion worksheet as they watch the movie. (I often make time to watch The Day After Tomorrow and we discuss the realities of global warming vs. the fiction of the movie.)
- Amy Pugel

Physics:

I also show An Inconvenient Truth during my Modern Physics class (as well as Judgment Day), in order to review important aspects of a testable scientific theory before we dive into the morass of string "theory".
([He explains] I think An Inconvenient Truth does a great job of explaining how the scientific method helps us reach confident conclusions on which we can and should build appropriate policy. The global warming skeptics at the fringes of the scientific community only serve to delineate the borders of the wide consensus on the core issues. This is in stark contrast to the feelings among the scientific community about string theory, where fundamental controversy and debate preclude any hint of a consensus.)

The Energy Project [assignment] in my Physics class provides a great opportunity for students to ... independently investigate, produce and view reports on issues related to climate change...
- Chris Schneider

Civilization to Smithsonian: Display this in Koch "human origins" exhibit

2010-09-02T11:28:00.001-07:00

Update: original source here (pdf; h/t Tobis and Paul)

It's the most important display you've never seen.

This information (source) is 100% absent from - and needs to be displayed front and foremost in - the David Koch and Peter Buck-funded Human Origins exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution:
(click to see full size)

...although to deliver the message most clearly, it could use a lot more red ink over on the right.

Is this comment written by the same Peter Buck?
(physicist and co-founder of Subway Sandwiches)

2006 K-8 "Taking Science to School" report a gem - how kids learn, metacognition...

2010-08-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

In looking at reports cited by the Draft Science Standards Framework, I was captivated by the 2006 NRC report Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8 (official link, draft pdf). It's gracefully written and provides a wealth of information about how children learn about science, and particularly about metacognitively guided learning - noting that metacognitive skills are what come into play to tell you that it's time to consider changing your mind, and suggesting how children's metacognitive skills can be brought into play and strengthened.

E.g.:

"Some conceptual changes are more challenging than others. For example, when children develop commonsense frameworks that deviate substantially from those proposed by scientists, a considerable amount of conceptual work is required to achieve knowledge restructuring. Part of the difficulty of learning a new concept is letting go of a familiar but incorrect set of ideas. Major changes in conceptual frameworks are often difficult to grasp because they require learners to break out of their familiar frame and reorganize a body of knowledge, often in ways that draw on unfamiliar ideas. Making these changes is facilitated when students engage in metacognitively guided learning, when teachers use a variety of techniques (such as bridging analogies, thought experiments, and imagistic reasoning) to help students construct an understanding of new concepts, and when students have opportunities to strengthen their understanding of the new ideas through extended application and argumentation."

"...a child may be able to access a conceptual system but may have a different default bias for thinking about which system of explanation is most relevant to the task at hand. A younger child may think hammers are used for hammering nails and not at first realize that they can also be used for sealing a paint can lid. When she realizes the relevance, she can use the tool immediately.
The same pattern can happen with conceptual systems as tools."

It's also got an excellent introductory section on the history ("all the data that we have so far") of previous science education reform efforts; reform hasn't been a cake walk.

Future K-12 Ed. - Despite murky evidence it's effective, Engineering gets near-equal footing with Science in Draft Framework

2010-08-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Feb 2011 caveat - compared to our more serious concerns, this is small potatoes.

"The traits of engineers that get them into the most trouble... is that they approach stress in "fix-it" mode and go off half-cocked." - Bruce Salem, 2008 (link)

K-12 students in the test tube(again); IMO, to propose implementing [nearly]evidence-free pedagogy for our children on a massive scale does not indicate respect for science.
(edited*)

"For engineering education to become a mainstream component of K–12 education, there will have to be much more, and much higher quality, outcomes-based data."

Thus spoke the 2009 National Research Council report Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects. But the dim view it took of the evidence for effectiveness of K-12 engineering education did not stop this year's Common Core Science Standards Draft Framework committee (the 2009 NRC report's chair is a member) from elevating Engineering and Technology teachings to an equal footing with the major branches of science in the Draft Framework (pdf) meant to shape educational standards slated for future multistate adoption.

Here are some more excerpts from the 2009 "Engineering in K-12 Education" report:
(STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)

"A variety of claims have been made for the benefits of teaching engineering to K–12 students, ranging from improved performance in related subjects, such as science and mathematics, and increased technological literacy to improvements in school attendance and retention, a better understanding of what engineers do, and an increase in the number of students who pursue careers in engineering.
Only limited reliable data are available to support these claims...the paucity and small size of studies ...uneven quality cannot support unqualified claims of impact.

"Fully integrated STEM education, that is, using engineering concepts and skills to leverage the natural connections between STEM subjects, would almost certainly require changes in the structure and practices of schools. Research would be necessary to develop and test curricula, assessments, and approaches to teacher professional development.
New integrated STEM(*) programs or “pilot schools” might be established to test changes before they are widely adopted."

I do have an email in [very recently] to the 2009 report's chair, to find out what happened, or whether I have somehow misunderstood.

Don't get me wrong, there will clearly be benefits to exposing kids to engineering - it'll give them a taste of the delight in inventing and the appeal of this career prospect, and it'll help immunize them against the reflexive, romantic anti-sci-tech bias which threatens our future by leading people to merely "try as individuals to act with a certain futile dignity and hope a few of us survive" (link). But there's also an opportunity cost to giving Engineering too-great an emphasis in the curriculum, as other subjects - perhaps more valuable for budding citizens - will be crowded out.

And the specter of a nation of Salem effect-afflicted youth is disturbing.

NAS Draft Science (&T&E) Standards Framework, on climate: better than current state science standards (but your expertise can improve it)

2010-08-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow - Monday August 2 - is the last day for feedback. Please bring on the climate science reviewers, particularly since no climate scientists were (directly(*)) involved in drafting this framework - and also since - to my knowledge - there's no guarantee that any *will* be involved, in writing the actual standards.
In this post I score the NAS Draft K-12 Science Standards Framework against the "climate concepts" metrics that Kim Kastens and Margaret Turrin used for evaluating state science standards.
Result: yes, the Draft Framework (for U.S. national science educational standards) looks good compared to the states' existing standards, but this is an apples-to-oranges comparison with a low bar, since some existing state standards are ancient; e.g., California's were drafted 12 years ago.
My recommendation: we can do better - by strengthening the message about human causes, by less "positive and negative effects" waffling that doesn't provide helpful guidance, by fixing errors, and by taking measures to ensure that the curriculum presents the essence of climate change in one place, not fragmented all over.

--------

In the Bud Ward/Metcalfe Institute's "Communicating Climate Change" (pdf, 2008) there's a segment on p. 48-49 titled "What are Children Being Taught in School(*) about Anthropogenic Climate Change?" by Kim Kastens and Margaret Turrin. Kasten and Turrin answer this question by scoring the 49* states' science standards on whether they cover the basic facts & principles of climate change.
"Table 1: Coverage of Climate Change in State Science Education Standards" gives the results in aggregate, showing the number of states* that covered each item. Here's the table:
---

Causes [of human-caused climate change]:
* Use of fossil fuels 7
* Land use changes, especially deforestation 5
* CFC’s or aerosols 0
* Causes, not specific 3
Mechanism* 17
Impacts
* Sea level rise 3
* Changes to hydrologic cycle 5
* Frequency or intensity of large storms 0
* Warming of air 18
* Changes to atmosphere, not specific 15
* Changes to climate, not specific 13
Acid rain 10
Ozone depletion 13
Mitigation or prevention measures 8
Any of the above 30

---

I've scored the NAS Draft Framework (Tomorrow, Aug 2, is the deadline for feedback) using these metrics, specifying the grade level in which each item is to be covered.

In the Framework, global warming topics get covered under the following five "core idea" components:

ESS Core Idea 3 (Earth's Surface Processes and Changes)
ESS 3.C. What regulates weather and climate? (Weather and Climate)
(greenhouse effect, natural causes of climate change; dynamic balance, positive feedback loops; very tentative on human causes)

ESS Core Idea 4 (Human Interactions with Earth):
ESS 4.A. How do natural hazards affect humans? (Natural Hazards)
(hazards that are posed by climate change and severe weather)
ESS 4.B. How do humans depend upon Earth’s materials? (Natural Resources)
(fossil fuels, future shortages, hence the need for renewables)
ESS 4.C. How do humans change the Earth? (Human Impacts on the Earth)
(pollution, "costs and benefits", "proper management...regulations"; alternate energy sources)
ESS 4.D. How will global climate change affect humans? (Global Climate Change)
(large consequences, "positive and negative", "much...is likely due to human"; impacts; tipping points; reduce impact by using science & models for decisionmaking.)

(Opinion: the climate change picture's being this fragmented in the Framework may pose a problem, if the actual curriculum's climate coverage is similarly fragmented - it'll likely be hard for the kids to put the picture together.)

==========
Scoring what the Draft Framework covers, and grade level where it's to be covered:

Causes:
6-8 * Use of fossil fuels
6-8 * Land use changes, especially deforestation
6-8 * CFC’s or aerosols

Mechanism:
"The best of the [state] standards distinguish clearly between natural and anthropogenic climate change, and cover both." - Kastens and Turrin

Since Kastens and Turrin did lump "stated or implied" coverage together, the Framework gets a Yes for "Mechanism", but a weak one, since the "mechanism" coverage is chaotic.

*Natural* causes of climate change are covered together nicely in "Weather and Climate" 9-12:

"Climate changes over many millions of years are dominated by the changing configuration of continents and erosion rates of mountains. "

"Climate variations over many thousands of years, like the Ice Ages, are primarily driven by changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of Earth’s axis of rotation."

"Natural factors that cause climate changes over human time scales (tens[?? - ed.] or hundreds of years) include volcanic activity and changes in ocean circulation patterns, atmospheric composition, and the output of energy from the Sun. When ocean currents change their flow patterns, such as during El Nino conditions, some regions become warmer or wetter while others become colder or drier."

And the Greenhouse Effect and greenhouse gases *are* addressed in "Weather and Climate" 6-8, but only in the context of keeping the planet from being unlivably cold; the converse "In excess, the Greenhouse Effect gives us global warming" is not explicitly stated.

It is *implied* though, in several places - in "Weather and Climate" 9-12, both straightforwardly ("Small increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases tend to increase the capacity of the Earth to retain heat...") and "tiptoeing via committee" ("The outcomes of Global Climate Models strongly depend upon the amounts of human-generated greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere"); and in "Global Climate Change" 6-8 ("Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations").

As for how much of the observed warming is human-caused, the Draft Framework is unnecessarily weak: in "Global Climate Change" 6-8 we get the IPCC "much...is likely [to be human-caused] " waffle, rather than the climatescience.gov Climate Literacy brochure's "overwhelming consensus...that most... is very likely".
(This despite the fact that, I'm told, the brochure was the model for the Framework's climate science coverage.)

Impacts:
6-8 * Sea level rise
9-12 * Changes to hydrologic cycle
9-12 * Frequency or intensity of large storms
9-12 * Warming of air (implied, in the context of "models predict...", in "Weather and Climate")

Acid rain and Ozone depletion are covered; they're introduced as problems we've handled, via "proper management...regulations", in "Human Impacts" 9-12.

As for Mitigation or prevention measures, the Framework mentions them but broadly (using language from the Climate Literacy brochure), in "Global Climate Change" 6-8:

"Humans may be able to mitigate climate change or lessen its severity by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations through processes that move carbon out of the atmosphere or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Actions can be taken by individuals, institutions, communities, and governments that influence climate."

But moving up to high school, "Global Climate Change" 9-12's "mitigation/prevention" content seems odd to me - here, the same question
"What can be done to reduce global climate change and its negative impacts?"
is answered by saying "models are used for decisionmaking".

"Measurements of greenhouse gas emissions and other factors that drive climate change are used in climate models to make predictions about climate change. These models aid in decision-making for individuals, institutions, communities, and governments."

I see three ways to read this -
First, it's just a proofreading error & the message was to be "models *should* be used for decisionmaking";
Second, the committee disagreed on specifics so this general language was all they could agree on; and/or
Third, this is a somewhat obscure way to help ensure that the standards keep up with future scientific developments, since it basically says "decisionmakers use the latest science to inform their decisionmaking".

For my overall conclusions, see the top of this post.

Climate change education in California public schools - current standards

2010-07-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

I've been looking into what California's public school kids are and aren't being taught about climate change, and from what I'm finding, it's not surprising that many don't realize what they're in for, or how to fight it.

(Caveats:
1. This post looks at the minimum, California-standards teaching on climate change; many teachers and schools educate further.
2. Since I'm an education neophyte, any effort to find errors and omissions here would be appreciated & will likely be fruitful.)

"Unless students take a high school earth science class, what they learn in grade six will be their foundation for earth science literacy."

From what I've read, it appears that the only climate change teaching some students get is just four sentences and a graph - buried amid 500+ pages of a 6th grade Earth Science textbook, buried within 12 years of public school education.
The sentences:

* Human activities add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
* Earth is getting warmer.
* Many people are concerned that these extra gases are adding to this warmth.
* Even a small increase in average temperatures could affect climates around the planet.

Why so little coverage in this 2007 textbook? I don't have all the answers yet; but it seems California was able to adopt it (and others - pdf) because it does conform to the 2003 Science Curriculum Framework (pdf) - which implements the 1998 K12 Science Content Standards (pdf) - which, for 6th grade Earth Science, cover heat, energy, "shaping Earth's surface" and plate tectonics, but don't appear to mention climate change.
(Does anyone know who crafted these standards?)

Surely a new set of California state standards is in the works?
Wrong, mostly(*); while there had been a "2010 Science Framework Update" effort, it's been postponed until 2013-2014 due to California's fiscal crisis, as have efforts to adopt new instructional materials (in link).
(why were they updating the Framework but not the Standards, which the Framework implements?)

What about high school Earth Science - won't that fill in the gaps?
High school Earth Science is an elective, and I've read that most college-bound kids don't take it. As for its content, on p.265-6 the high school Earth Science K12 Framework (pdf) does address the greenhouse effect but uses a "heck if we know", "uncertainty" framing for global warming:

Human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, is increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This buildup can potentially cause a significant increase in global temperatures and affect global and regional weather patterns. Predicting the precise long-term impact is difficult, however, because the influence of cloud cover and other factors is poorly understood.

Likewise in an optional section comparing Venus, Earth and Mars:

...if the concentration of absorbing gases is too high, trapping too much heat in the atmosphere, excessive heating could occur on Earth, producing global warming and a climate closer to that of Venus. The concentration of greenhouse gases, principally that of carbon dioxide, is increasing in Earth’s atmosphere, a phenomenon caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Computer models of the greenhouse effect (a projected buildup of greenhouse gases) predict an increase in average global temperatures.
If these models are accurate, the change predicted could have significant consequences on weather patterns and ocean levels. However, Earth’s climate system consists of a complex set of positive and negative feedback mechanisms that are not fully understood, and therefore predictions of changes in global temperatures contain some uncertainty.

(Where can I see a high school earth science textbook? I'm told adoption of HS texts is local, the state only "adopts" texts for K-8.)

There are two prospects for change in future.

One is the Gates Foundation-supported effort to draft and encourage states to adopt the Science (and engineering, and technology) "common core standards"; the draft Framework for these standards still needs your feedback by Aug. 2.

Another is the CalEPA "Education and Environment Initiative", the 2003 AB1548-mandated project (link) to bring environmental education into public schools.

Further posts will address these and also look at what/how some schools in Nevada County are teaching.

U.S. K-12 core science education standards - public comment now, on draft framework

2010-07-22T04:03:00.000-07:00

Climate science folk would do well to take a look and weigh in on the draft framework for core science standards (link); the committee that drafted it contains no climate scientists.

The core standards for science (which are actually for science, engineering, and technology) will follow the current effort to have states adopt a common set of math and English standards for K-12 education.

August 2 is the deadline for submitting public comments on the draft "core science standards" framework. Then the revised framework will go to Achieve, Inc ("independent, bipartisan, non-profit education reform organization" mainly funded by the Gates Foundation) which will oversee writing of the standards.

The main spot to look at is probably "ESS Core Idea 4: Human activities are constrained by and, in turn, affect all other processes at Earth’s surface" on page 7-39 of the document (pdf).

-----
Related - "What are Children Being Taught in School about Anthropogenic Climate Change?" by Kastens and Turrin on p. 48 of the Metcalfe Institute's Communicating On Climate Change (pdf)

Here's hoping they don't get the comments the EPA did.

Inside FreedomWorks - two photos

2010-05-07T10:38:00.001-07:00

A couple of photos of FreedomWorks from my visit to DC. Click to enlarge...

Related - Roger Ebert's July 25 "BP's tree fell on my lawn"

Best of Borenstein

2010-03-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

Akin to the "Best of Mashey" post, here's a compendium of climate writings by Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press, one of the still-rare breed of journalists who advocate for truth.

* Dec 2009, Climate reality: Voluntary efforts not enough

* Oct 2009, An Exquisite Debunking of Global Cooling Claims (four independent statisticians...) - The Intersection - Discover Magazine
* Jan 2007, New Climate Report Too Rosy, Experts Say
* Sept 2006, Scientists find new global warming threat from melting permafrost
* July 2006, “Utilities Give Warming Skeptic [Pat Michaels] Big Bucks"
* June 2006, Scientists say Gore got it right - Deltoid
* Oct 2004, Environment Worsened Under Bush in Many Key Areas, Data Show

Any particularly good ones that should be added here?

(fyi, the best way to find Borenstein's writings seems to be to use the Google News Archive Search for "no price" stories with keywords "Seth Borenstein" "climate", like so.)

Unfortunate Grist climate communication cluelessness

2010-03-04T10:18:00.001-08:00

Grist is a useful site for climate news, and they've got a handy link on the front page to Coby Beck's "how to talk to a climate skeptic" compendium (which is both broader and less deep than John Cook's Skeptical Science, which only addresses the contrarians' science claims.)

But they're shooting our planet in the foot, in how they present it.

Probably the #1 principle in climate communication with the public is to avoid the frame of us-vs-them partisan confrontation - because there shouldn't *be* a conflict here, our adversary is physics - and because when people view it as a cultural conflict, they reflexively harden their views to side with their cultural "tribe", which is exactly what we all - particularly their kids - *don't* need.

So, what does Grist do, to frame Coby Beck's otherwise-excellent resource? They use us-vs-them imagery, of an arm wrestle and a tug-of-war. Consequence: an otherwise excellent resource now poisons the discourse, if those of the less-science-oriented tribe see it - which means that I can't offer it to the contrarians I'm trying to reach.

But we all do thoughtless things sometimes though, so I pointed out to Grist what effect the imagery had, and offered - if they were overloaded with work - to come up with some less confrontational images myself.

Their response?

the imagery is meant to be light and funny in line with Grist's unique tone and therefore our editorial department has opted not to change it.

If you think these images will offend your friend, I might suggest using it as a reference during your next “educational discussion” rather than pointing him to the site directly.

A better suggestion: send your contrarian friends directly to Coby Beck's website at http://bit.ly/cobybeck - bypassing Grist.

"Scientific literates" who are doubters, and who they trust on climate change

2010-01-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

"I know of many very intelligent “scientific literate” people who get all out of joint when anyone mentions the word, “climate change”, “pollution”, or even “environmentalists”."

- this Climate Progress comment set me wondering, about these guys, and I'm hoping you can help me get answers.

We all know laymen who are smart, who aren't in the pay of big oil, who consider themselves to be scientifically literate, and yet who doubt the climate science - either the science showing the humans' effect on climate change, and/or the science indicating the need to take action now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Could you ask your lay doubters these Qs please...
1. Where do they typically get their science information?
2. Who do they consider a trustworthy source (that they themselves feel fairly comfortable relying on) for summarizing/interpreting the state of climate science?
3. Who do they consider a trustworthy source (that they themselves feel fairly comfortable relying on) for summarizing/interpreting the state of other areas of science?

Answers in the comments please (or URLs to where these Qs are answered, preferably succinctly).

The hunt for smiley faces, another climate contrarian wurlitzer allegory

2010-01-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

Allegory #1 is The Duck (h/t MT); it's wonderful.

Unlike #1, Allegory #2 is nonfictional (can allegories be nonfictional?) -

it's Ruth Kaiser's hunt for smiley faces, chronicled by the Chronicle today.

Think how many smiley faces we'd see, passed from blog to blog, promoted under breathless WSJ headlines...

People who aren't related

2009-12-28T22:01:00.001-08:00

(moved to my SourceWatch page for now.)

SourceWatch "populate a Reference string" bookmarklet

2009-12-28T19:17:00.000-08:00

(Update: I'm also finding this useful just for grabbing a webpage's title, in copy-paste-able form.)
Here's a timesaver for SourceWatch contributors who use Firefox - a bookmarklet that builds a "reference" citation string, with the easy fields filled in.

The string looks like this:

<ref >{{cite web |publisher=Warming101 blog: SourceWatch "populate a Reference string" bookmarklet |title=Warming101 blog: SourceWatch "populate a Reference string" bookmarklet |url=http://warming101.blogspot.com/2009/12/sourcewatch-populate-reference-string.html |accessdate=2009-12-28 |author=? |date=? |quote=? }}</ref>

To install it:
Right-click on the "SWRef" link below...

SWRef

...and choose "Bookmark This Link"; then for the Folder selection, pick "Bookmarks Toolbar*" (assuming you've got one up there), then hit the Save button. SWRef should now be visible in your Firefox bookmarks toolbar.

Next, copy the following text:
(& see further below if you actually want to read it)

javascript:FD983r={x:function(){var%20utitle%20=%20document.getElementsByTagName('title')[0].innerHTML.replace(/\|/,'-').replace(/\n/g,'%20').replace(/^\s*/,'').replace(/\s*$/,''); var%20today=new%20Date(); var%20accessdate='20'+today.getYear().toString().substr(1)+'-'+%20(today.getMonth()>8?today.getMonth()+1:'0'+(today.getMonth()+1))+'-'+%20today.getDate(); var%20reftext='%20<ref%20>{{cite%20web%20|publisher='%20+%20utitle%20+%20'%20|title='%20+%20utitle%20+%20'%20|url='%20+%20document.location.href%20+%20'%20|accessdate='%20+%20accessdate%20+%20'%20|author=?%20|date=?%20|quote=?%20}}</ref>%20';alert(reftext);%20}};FD983r.x();

...then Right-click your new SWRef bookmarklet, choose Properties, and, in the Location field, Paste your copied text in; then click Save.

To use the bookmarklet:
Go to the webpage you want to build the "ref" string for, then click the SWRef bookmarklet; an Alert box pops up containing the ref string, which you Copy, then Paste where you want it, then edit its info as desired.

Let me know if the bookmarklet doesn't work, or if you have Qs - or if you know of more powerful & sophisticated ones for building the reference string. I'm sure they're out there, but googling
bookmarklet site:Sourcewatch.org
didn't turn up anything helpful. More likely they've been built for Wikipedia...

(I did find a New York Times to Wikipedia Citation Greasemonkey script.)

p.s. re other browsers: This is my first bookmarklet, and for all I know they may well work on MSIE too, or other browsers, but I haven't looked/tried there or on a Mac.

p.p.s. Here's the script in somewhat more readable form:


javascript:FD983r={
x:function()
{
var utitle = document.getElementsByTagName('title')[0].innerHTML
 .replace(/\|/,'-').replace(/\n/g,' ').replace(/^\s*/,'').replace(/\s*$/,'');

var today=new Date();
var accessdate='20'+today.getYear().toString().substr(1)+'-'
+(today.getMonth()>8?today.getMonth()+1:'0'+(today.getMonth()+1))
+'-'+ today.getDate();

var reftext='<ref>{{cite web |publisher=' + utitle + ' |title=' + utitle
  + ' |url=' + document.location.href + ' |accessdate=' + accessdate
  + ' |author=? |date=? |quote=? }}</ref>';
alert(reftext);
}};
FD983r.x();

...and here's a page on bookmarklets that I found helpful.

Climate nihilism - journalist Nicholas Wade

2009-12-28T13:09:00.000-08:00

Here are three instances of climate nihilism from New York Times reporter Nicholas Wade: an interview and a TierneyLab NYTimes blog post from roughly the past year, and some general journo-nihilism from an interview in 2005.

Last December, in his "regenerating a mammoth" Stephen Colbert (Comedy Central) interview (Dec. 4, 2008; video), Wade tried to bring up the nihilist "the earth has warmed and cooled before" talking point, and raised the specter of a new ice age:

Wade: ...we could bring back all the fauna of the Pleistocene age and have a Pleistocene park, and we would learn how to live and survive in an ice age - which we will need to do when then next ice age returns.

Colbert: I thought it was global warming.

Wade: Well the environmentalists have you worried* about global warming -

- at which point Colbert interrupted and closed the interview.

From the video, it sounded as though Wade was really making an effort to deliver the "natural warming and cooling" talking point; so I emailed him, pointing out the likely effect of his remarks and asking why*:

"...you were trying to convey that the earth had warmed and cooled naturally before, and that "the environmentalists have you worried about global warming..."(at which point you were cut off) ...which, while true, effectively confuses the listener into thinking that
a) today's climate change is therefore nothing to get worked up about, and
b) climate change concerns are just the latest environmentalist scare.
Could you, please, tell me at whose behest you were trying to deliver these messages?"

I also asked:

"What is your understanding of the relative risks of [global warming vs. a new ice age], within, say,the next 200 years?"

Mr. Wade was unwilling to respond on the record.

Last summer, in a post on John Tierney's blog, Mr. Wade put forth a bouquet of nihilist talking points - the disdain for scientific consensus, the presumption that climate models are as erroneous as economic ones, and the conflation of real skeptics with fossil-fuel-funded contrarians bent on obfuscation:

"If the brightest minds on Wall Street got suckered by group-think into believing house prices would never fall [sic], what other policies founded on consensus wisdom could be waiting to come unraveled? Global warming, you say? You mean it might be harder to model climate change 20 years ahead than house prices 5 years ahead? Surely not – how could so many climatologists be wrong?

What’s wrong with consensuses is not the establishment of a majority view, which is necessary and legitimate, but the silencing of skeptics. ..."

Wade also put forth a nihilist philosophy when Jane Gitschier interviewed him for PLoS in 2005:

Wade: ...It's one of the challenges we have as a science section—to get people interested in things that are of purely intellectual consequence.

Gitschier: How do you envision your readership?

Wade: As a general policy, the newspaper is addressed to the intelligent and informed reader, but it's always with the idea of bringing news. We're not in the business of education.

...

Gitschier: How long have you worked for the New York Times?

Wade: Longer than I like to think! I came in 1981. I was on the news section of Science, and before that with Nature. At both journals, I was mostly concerned with political stories that affected science. ... I worked for [Science] for about ten years. ... A reporter's job is to give readers sufficient information to make up their own minds. In a news story, you should expose people to all the possibilities, but you don't have to decide which one is correct.

2012-01-09 addition: no, you don't always have to decide, but if you've got an audience of millions who are largely confused, and the stakes are huge, then it is good to make the effort.

[2012-01-09 edit: irrelevance removed.]

The Product Defense Industry's PR Bag o' Tricks

2009-12-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

Jeff Masters made this compendium.

Launch a public relations campaign disputing the evidence.

Predict dire economic consequences, and ignore the cost benefits.

Use non-peer reviewed scientific publications or industry-funded scientists who don't publish original peer-reviewed scientific work to support your point of view.

Trumpet discredited scientific studies and myths supporting your point of view as scientific fact.

Point to the substantial scientific uncertainty, and the certainty of economic loss if immediate action is taken.

Use data from a local area to support your views, and ignore the global evidence.

Disparage scientists, saying they are playing up uncertain predictions of doom in order to get research funding.

Disparage environmentalists, claiming they are hyping environmental problems in order to further their ideological goals.

Complain that it is unfair to require regulatory action in the U.S., as it would put the nation at an economic disadvantage compared to the rest of the world.

Claim that more research is needed before action should be taken.

Argue that it is less expensive to live with the effects.

He missed the "we'll lose our national sovereignty" argument.

(This list was in The Skeptics vs. the Ozone Hole, and was reprinted in The Manufactured Doubt industry and the hacked email controversy)

Yulsman's "Covering Climate Change" course is up, at journo training site NewsU

2009-11-30T15:19:00.000-08:00

NewsU, the site with free online courses for journalists, has unveiled Covering Climate Change, by Tom Yulsman. It costs nothing but a few hours of your - or your journalist's - time, and, IMO, could be very constructive in helping climate journalism to move past he-said-she-said stories. "Send them the course URL" will make a wonderful addendum to Mashey's suggestions on What to do about poor science reporting.

It's not complete; as a beta tester, I did suggest to Yulsman that he arm journalists with the tools they need for working in an anti-science war zone, but that feedback likely came too late to do much good.

Evidence of questionable SuperFreakonomics NYTimes blog comment moderation

2009-11-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

The Freakonomics blog moderators (including Dubner?) are deleting comments that link to critical reviews of SuperFreakonomics - including to the devastating New Yorker one by Kolbert.

I’ve pasted screenshots of four deleted comments (which were submitted to the SuperFreakonomics in the News post ) into this assemblage:
(other would-be commenters have also reported this happening to theirs - e.g. Klortho in comments below)

Updated Nov. 11 to remove screenshots (go here to see them) and Nov 8 with a second instance - my comment linking to Greg Craven's scathing review of the climate chapter.

People(*) have reported that comments containing or linking to criticism of Dubner & Levitt's new book SuperFreakonomics often don't survive moderation when submitted to Stephen Dubner's New York Times blog Freakonomics, which is moderated by Dubner* and perhaps others.

But to my knowledge there hasn't been hard evidence of this occurring, since we don't typically take screenshots of our comments after submitting them, since we generally don't expect civil, informed commentary* to disappear.

But there's evidence now. Yesterday, on this post, I submitted this comment:*

BrianD's compendium of informed SuperFreakonomics reviews can be found here:
leftasanexercise.simulating-reality.com/?p=90

Nov 8 update: a comment [on a different Freak blog post, thus arguably off-topic as Klortho points out] that linked to Greg Craven's review also got deleted.

From Greg Craven's review:

They've made the classic, tragic, predictable (and predicted) leap of the skeptic from "It's not a problem," directly to "It's too big of a problem to do anything about." Advocating geoengineering without having first thrown your entire being, reputation, and life force into a Herculean effort to mobilize humanity into a crash program to remake our energy economy is the height of madness, as well as intellectual disingenuousness of almost treasonable degree. To conclude that the risks to humanity of radical and active experimentation on the climate are both better known *and* of lesser magnitude than a radical restructuring of our energy economy threatens to go down in history as the final, condemning judgment of humankind's collective fitness for survival.

Given their position of considerable influence with the public and the cavalier recklessness with which they dismiss the risks of catastrophic climate change...

Did "fatally flawed" Calif AB32 analysis authors, CSUS Business School dean Varshney & prof. Tootelian, neglect to register their own business names?

2009-10-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

They're not saying (but that's what it looks like.)

(FYI to those strapped for time: all this is background except for the first sentence and the final three paragraphs.)

(and yes, it's also anklebiting; compared to the criticisms of their report, it's very small potatoes.)

The California Small Business Roundtable paid for a flawed and misleading July 2009 analysis of the "California Cap & Trade" bill AB32. Performed by Cal State University Sacramento business school dean Sanjay Varshney of Varshney and Associates, and CSUS business school professor Dennis Tootelian of Tootelian and Associates, it estimated the costs - only the costs - of compliance with AB32. Once the report was issued, opponents of regulation wielded these numbers as if they told the whole story.*

As noted in last week's Sacramento Bee article (Jim Downing's Fiscal impact of state climate law disputed, Oct 19), experts took a dim view of the Varshney and Tootelian analysis. The UOP business professor host of Valley Economy discussed one critique rather bluntly in this Oct 13 post, and in a Sept. 21 report (pdf) UCLA Economics and Public Policy professor Matthew Kahn described it as economically alarmist and "fatally flawed".

(curiously, Downing's Bee article was republished by McClatchyDC under the more credulous headline "California State dean predicts major fiscal impact from climate law"; perhaps the copy editor only saw the first page?)

To cut to the chase - the Varshney and Tootelian report states that it's authored by Varshney, principal of Varshney and Associates, and by Tootelian, principal of Tootelian and Associates. Legally, the "and Associates" makes these Fictitious Business Names (FBNs), because it suggests the existence of additional owners; and as FBNs, California code requires that the names be registered in the county that is their principal place of business.

But neither the "Varshney and Associates" nor the "Tootelian and Associates" FBN is registered in Sacramento County. And neither principal has been willing to say where, if at all, the names *are* registered: Dean Varshney didn't respond to my emails and phone messages asking where "Varshney and Associates" was registered; and while Dr. Tootelian did answer his phone, when I asked what county the "Tootelian and Associates" FBN was registered in, he said he had no comment and hung up.

While it's true that, as the Valley Economics blog host points out, there's no real doubt as to who's behind the FBNs in this case, nonetheless (as I replied) these are a business school dean and professor, and as such would be expected to know and to obey the regulations.

And stonewalling is never attractive.

Does Anthony Watts have a college degree?

2009-10-27T14:59:00.001-07:00

(I should clarify, the issue isn't whether he has a diploma or not, it's whether he has the relevant scientific education, or any scientific education for that matter. The self-taught - who've always graded their own tests, as it were - frequently don't realize what they don't know.)
-----

Neither the Wikipedia nor SourceWatch page on climate inactivist blogger Anthony Watts mentions his academic background, which leads one to wonder if he has a degree at all, much less in a relevant field.

So I asked. First I emailed him, at his company address, but got no reply; then I phoned the company, ITWorks, and asked Lisa, the nice woman at the other end of the line. She went off to find out, but returned empty-handed, saying he wasn't willing to provide that information.

So the next time you're face-to-face with Anthony, don't be at a loss for words; ask him where and when he got a degree, and in what field - then add what you find to Wikipedia and SourceWatch.

2011-07-20 update: 2 things:
First, another SourceWatch contributor did check with Purdue (I didn't realize one could do this) and find out for sure.
Second, I've received a comment on this post asking that some info in comments be deleted for personal reasons; not sure, but better safe than sorry, so I'll hide the comments.

Caldeira explains the "right villain" episode

2009-10-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

In the climate change chapter of SuperFreakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt present climate scientist Ken Caldeira's views in a way that makes him appear to hold views that in fact he does not hold. The clearest instance of this is their saying - wrongly - "Yet [Caldeira's] research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight". (Caldeira subsequently updated his webpage to read "Carbon dioxide is the right villain, insofar as inanimate objects can be villains.")

There's been some confusion about how this "not the right villain" line stayed in the book, despite Caldeira's having objected to it and despite this objection having been seen by Dubner. So I emailed Caldeira asking what happened; he responded yesterday, [paraphrase:] confirming that it was a misrepresentation but saying that D&L apparently hadn't grasped the strength of his objection, and that he had no reason to believe that their retaining the "right villain" quote was anything but a good-faith misunderstanding. From the email (emphases added):

> Romm [and Bloomberg - ed. (link)] says you objected to the "not the right villain" line but Levitt and Dubner left it in anyway. Is that accurate?

Reality is just slightly more complex.

I did receive a version in MSWord. I did not read it all but just searched for my name. (I feel no need to fact check things that come in over the transom.)

I highlit the offending sentence
And yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.[KC1]
and wrote the following comment:
[KC1] My views differ significantly from Lowell's and Nathan's. I do think we are being incredibly foolish emitting CO2 and that avoiding all of this environmental risk is a good way to invest a few percent of our GDP. My pessimism stems from the apparent difficulties of solving the "prisoner's dilemma", "tragedy of the commons", type aspects of this problem.

I expected, based on this comment, that the highlit sentence would be removed but did not explicitly request them to remove it.

Instead, Levitt and Dubner added a line about "foolish" preceding the line that I was concerned about. So, now the text reads:
He believes "we are being incredibly foolish emitting carbon dioxide" as we currently do.

Yet his research tells him that carbon dioxide is not the right villain in this fight.

Did I object to the line? Arguably, yes. Was I clear and explicit about not wanting the line in there? No. Was there room for people acting in good faith do differ regarding what my highlighting meant? Yes.

All of the other statements attributed to me are based on fact, although there are differences in detail, nuance, etc.

As I have tried to say in several times now: My views, beliefs, policy prescriptions, etc, differ from those of Myhrvold, Wood, Levitt, Dubner, etc, however, I do not question their good intentions.

I can and do frame my own beliefs differently and set them in a different context.

(Caldeira's webpage points to his Oct. 21 Yale e360 interview for the clearest exposition of his views.)

Ken Caldeira on his Intellectual Ventures ties

2009-10-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

In their SuperFreakonomics writing, Dubner and Levitt call Ken Caldeira a colleague at Intellectual Ventures, and the I.V. website features him among their Inventors. Since that doesn't make the nature of Caldeira's I.V. connections entirely clear, I asked him to explain. He said:

I have worked as a consultant to Intellectual Ventures for several days total of consulting time.

---------------------

On one previous patent that was filed by the Department of Energy (http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=WcIUAAAAEBAJ). To avoid impressions of conflict of interest, I have publicly stated:

[i]n the unlikely event that that patent should ever make any money, I hereby assert that I will donate 100% of my share of the proceeds to non-profit charities and NGOs.

-------------------------

I have been on two patents that were filed by Intellectual Ventures or their agents that were related to a wave driven pump. ...

With regard to the ocean pump patent applications, I here for the first time state:

In the unlikely event that that any patent for which I am a co-inventor with Intellectual Ventures ever make any money for applications involving direct intervention in the climate system, I hereby assert that I will donate 100% of my share of the proceeds to non-profit charities and NGOs.

Those applications are listed at:

http://www.freshpatents.com/-dt20090709ptan20090173801.php

http://www.freshpatents.com/Water-alteration-structure-risk-management-or-ecological-alteration-management-systems-and-methods-dt20090709ptan20090177569.php

New SourceWatch page - Plants Need CO2

2009-09-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

Here's the page; one of Plants Need CO2's three directors, Corbin Robertson Jr., "is said to own more coal through his various ventures than anyone outside of the U.S. government."

I've got more to add to the page, but am hoping I can talk to their spokesman first.

John Mashey's greatest hits: a climate comment compendium

2009-08-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

Added "nuclear" comment 2011-09-25; Reorganized & edited 2011-09-16. Caveat: expect this compendium to be incomplete.
John Mashey frequently comments on climate blogs, but doesn't keep one himself *. His comments - and other expositions - are invariably worth your attention, and frequently rate among the best on the topic at hand. So they're worth collecting in one spot - ideally it'd be Mashey's Wikipedia page, but since anyone can delete them there (it happened), I'm putting them here instead. Feel free to submit more in the (moderated) comments below.
(and John, please feel free to submit them too - basically, anytime you find yourself saying "please go read what I said back on this other post"...)

Blogposts&comments, videos&animations, and reports below. (The blogposts are generally clear & easy to read, while IMO the reports are reference material, extremely thorough but not always easy to absorb.)

Blogposts & comments:

"Sensible people trust the experts" medical analogy, Oct 2011. "Ask them: Their mother has heart problems. At least 97 working cardiologists / heart surgeons tell them she'd better have an operation. One cardiac surgeon who has lost almost every patient in last decade says NO OPERATION, NO PROBLEM and is joined by a retired brain surgeon and a petroleum geophysicist who publishes in a dog astrology journal. So, who do they believe?" (Mashey adds, "I have at least occasionally found the heart surgeon / brain surgeon example to work in person")
On the nuclear power "wedge" here, with followups later in thread ( Rabett Run, Sept 2011) E.g: not every area is as suited to renewables as California; Gen IV reactors; "turn off the lights" is not politically attractive.
Beyond the Salem effect (responding to someone' who'd said “These people, typically senior engineers, get suspicious...”, Mashey asks "Please, can we get deeper than “senior engineers” ")
People (engineers or not) who live in a world of clarity & precision have problems with the ambiguity/uncertainty/weight-of-evidence nature of climate science, while ones who regularly deal with ambiguity&uncertainty don't. (Sept 2009)
(related, Arthur Smith's The Arrogance of Physicists )
Bringing his Bell Labs career to bear on the "don't price carbon, let's plan on an energy miracle" strategy: “Never schedule breakthroughs.” (Dot Earth, Dec 2008)
On Lomborg and disingenuous prioritization here (ThingsBreak, Jan 2009) (related, Tim Lambert's So what's wrong with Lomborg?)

Taxonomy of the Reasons For Anti-Science (Deltoid, Dec 2008) (e.g. "IDEOL-2 "Anti-regulation" public. Many people. As far as I know, nobody likes higher taxes or dealing with cumbersome regulation... the legitimate argument is about the appropriate levels, and reasonable people can disagree"). See also (Jan 2010) "taxonomy" images: a catalog of Reasons for Anti-Science (.jpg; adds PSYa) and Map of Reasons onto Organizations & People (.jpg); look for a writeup (?) on Steve Easterbrook's blog. (FYI, I find these "taxonomy" writings more reference material, less accessible than the other blogposts)

How to learn about science (Deltoid, Aug 2008) ("...I'm always curious when people with decent-or-better educational backgrounds strongly espouse conclusions directly opposite that of mainstream science. Is the mainstream wrong? Have they not yet done sufficient study? Or are there extra-science reasons? ...) Includes Metaphor: The Great Wall of Science

What to do about poor science reporting (Deltoid, Oct 2007) In short: offer a hand up.

History of AGW Consensus (In It for the Gold, Oct 2007) This post also gives structural reasons why public might not see a consensus - e.g. scientists don't talk much about what's already understood&accepted - and gives a link to Oreskes' "How do we know we're not wrong?" (pdf)
Some efforts to subvert science groups' statements on climate (2011-12-26) - how even physicists' groups can go awry. ("Large groups can be vulnerable... All it takes is small group of people with intense beliefs, especially if inside a larger group not focused on the specific topic.")

Videos/animations:

2011-04, 1+ hour video of talk given Apr 7 (John Mashey lecture tour: The Machinery of Climate Anti-Science). High-bandwidth connection recommended for the video; or you can listen, or view notes&charts. Final minute or two of Q&A covers (&dismisses) the "expect magic research breakthroughs" argument. Broadcast (mp3) on Radio Ecoshock, 2011-07-08.
Graphics animation promoting statistical literacy - variation in short term trends with noisy data, linked to in this CapitalClimate post

Reports, plus other writings of, about, & instigating the reports:

2011-08-24, Rick Perry, Peter Wood and the blogosphere: Guest blogpost from John Mashey at Deltoid covering the Peter Wood "nonsense" episode and fallout ("We thus have a (well-funded) Presidential candidate (or his staff) relying on Peter Wood for credible opinion regarding climate science.") It pulls together his & Robert Coleman's 2011-08-04 post Bottling Nonsense, Misusing a Civil Platform at The Chronicle of Higher Education, and his 2011-08-01 34pp report Bottling Nonsense: Peter Wood and the National Association of Scholars;Wood was responding to the...
2011-06 Eli Kintisch profile of Mashey in Science (DeSmogBlog post on it here).
2011-05 report, Strange Falsifications in the Wegman Report, DeSmogBlog, May 27, 2011, 12p. aka SFWR
2011-05 report, Strange Tales and Emails: Said, Wegman, Sharabati, Rigsby (2008), DeSmogBlog, May 26, 2011, 17p. aka STaE.
2011-01 report, Strange Inquiries at George Mason University …and even stranger comments, DeSmogBlog, Jan. 04, 2011, 45p. (SIGMU)
2010-09 report, Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report: A Façade for the Climate Anti-Science PR Campaign (pdf); long and detailed.
2010-03 report, Crescendo Climategate Cacophony ( digging " ever deeper...into the morass of deception and disinformation that has characterized the recent climate conversation." - DeSmogBlog ); long and detailed.
2010-02-11 report, Mashey explains how organized defamation of science has been structured and funded. It's a PDF, and it's long (>100 pp overall); some excerpts (and some fine related links) are here at Bart's blog.
2009-11-11 report, Science Bypass – Anti-science Petition to APS from folks with SEPP, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland, DeSmogBlog, Nov. 11, 2009, 128p.
2008-03-23 blogpost, Another Attack on Global Warming’s Scientific Consensus – A Case Study of Personal Harassment and Amplification of Nonsense by the Denialist PR Machine,; introducing the 40pp report Another attack on Consensus - Monckton/Schulte/Ferguson/Morano/Asher vs Oreskes & Consensus (PDF) v7.0

(If you want to see all Mashey's climate comments, not just the ones from this compendium, I think this W101 Custom Google Search will return most of the ones on climate blogs, or try a Google blogsearch for Mashey)

About Warming101.com

2009-08-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

Updated 2011-10-19 - see Caveats below.

I built the Warming 101 aggregator in order to be able to scan all the climate blogs' news in one place.
(It reuses a script I wrote to generate this site)

You won't find the antiscience climate blogs here for "balance" - the sites on Warming101 are ones that I find valuable.
(But if someone wants a denier-delayer aggregation, they can easily build one at alltop.com, or use the one at rankexploits.com/news)

Caveats (added Oct 19 2011)

Above, I'd proudly said the blogs on Warming101.com are "ones I find valuable"; also, I often recommend the W101 custom search, bit.ly/w101search, for science-aligned climate news.

But after some experience & the passage of time, I need to add these caveats:

Literally, Warming101 is actually an aggregator of "blogs I've found valuable"; most still are, but it has happened that I've been disturbed by what one's thrown up. If you think a blog doesn't belong, let me know. If I think a blog doesn't belong, I'll either complain to the blogger or just remove the blog.
The W101 Google Custom Search isn't always up to date, and its top choices aren't my top choices. As of Oct 2011 it's been neglected for some time, so some sites on Warming101 aren't among those Searched (and what seems to be the top blog coming up in these searches isn't by my choice, I need to go in & see if fiddling with the blog order in the list on Google helps.)

What's new at Warming101.com

2009-08-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

What's new at Warming101 -

Apr 20, 2011, added Shaping Tomorrow's World. (& I've added others in the last year but neglected to note them here.)

June 18, 2010, added Climate Signals - it's happening now.

May 10, 2010, added BBickmore(Utah), Climate Desk, JamesH's ClassM, Policy Lass.

Apr 21, 2010, added GWFacts (in Misc) and the Climate feed for Scholars and Rogues

Mar 11, 2010, added Randy Olson's The Benshi and shuffled blogs around (added a column). Let me know if I broke anything.

Mar 10, 2010, added Climate WTF

Feb 20, 2010, added PIRC's Climate Safety; and updated the Warming101 custom search to include pages from it, Prall's, Wunderblog, and TB

Jan 31, 2010, added Jim Prall, and Jeff Masters's Wunderblog

Dec 30, 2009, added Bill Hewitt (and, earlier, Scott Mandia)

Dec 14, 2009, added Mother Jones Environment feed

Dec 11, 2009, added From James Hansen and updated list of sites for the Custom Search (which I'm now just giving a link to, so you can use it w/o having to enable scripting on W101)

Sept 22, 2009, added Serendipity and Paul Gilding (read Parallel Universes of Climate Change)

Aug 27, 2009, added WonkRoom global warming posts, Brian D, and Brian's "Mindless Link Propagation" feed.

Aug 14, 2009, added the Custom Google Search Engine, these "meta" pages, and three blogs: Climate Security, Coby Beck, and Lou Grinzo.

Alternatives to Warming101.com

2009-08-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Suggest reality-based (i.e., science-based) "climate news overview" alternatives to the Warming101.com climate aggregator in comments here.

(Alltop.com would be one...)

Bug/Status reports for Warming101.com

2009-08-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Bug and status reports for the Warming101.com climate aggregator - submit them in the comments please.

Suggest a blog for Warming101.com

2009-08-14T13:30:00.000-07:00

If you know of a reality-based climate blog that should be on Warming101.com, please suggest it as a comment here.

Dot Earth Defender from the user's perspective

2008-10-17T11:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some testimonials for the NYTimes comment-reformatting script Dot Earth Defender (the NY Times changed their blog format making the script inoperable, but we're still hoping they'll come around, and make some changes to accommodate D.E.D.)

trinifar said...

"Just started using it. First impression: brilliant! Thanks for your wonderful work. If I can find the time to add to it, I will."

"I’m wearing a comment filter to ensure I don’t read the marginalized comments from the denialists here - the same dozen or so, as compared to the many scores who don’t occupy the marginal fringe."
- Dano

"This is my first post while using “Dot Earth Defender”.

It’s great!
Thanks to Anna H, for her creativity and hard work and passion to help make the Dot Earth environment as reader-friendly and user-friendly as possible.

Although I’m still trying out some of the great features, “DED” seems able to do just about anything except get me tickets to the next Bob Dylan concert. I
...
[re]comment screening...I’ve been a Dot Earthling for over half-a-year now, and when it comes to the subject of global warming, and in the interest of time and some degree of efficiency, I think the abilities to screen, recommend, respond quickly, and so forth will be very helpful."
Jeff

"[I'm using Dot Earth Defender, a comment reformatting script, to ignore fossil-fuel-industry-sponsored disinformation in DotEarth comments. This means I'm unlikely to read or respond to any garbage posted here, industry-sponsored or otherwise]."
— MeltyMan

142. July 28, 2008 8:11 pm Link

"please, please, please!

what is the newest defender?

i can’t handle kimmie’s rants and too numerous postings.

i’d rather focus on those who have taken their meds!"
— guido

Re: comment #142

"guido, you are in the same boat as a lot of us — here is the site where you can download Anna Hayes’ Dot Earth Defender:

http://warming101.com/dotearth/

She has spent huge amounts of time sprucing it up, and it is getting to be pretty nice."

"I don’t know how the NYTimes disabled the killfile script but it seems to have done it...Why do I care? Its my machine. It's like walking into a cafe in my hometown and seeing people who hate me, who spend their nights thinking up ways to screw with me, I know it, they know it, and I just don’t see the point of sitting in the same booth with them. So I used this script. With the script they aren’t there. Without it, suddenly its like the commercials on TV: I don’t even want the words reverberating in my mind .... I might have to stop coming... because you don’t want me to control what happens on my own machine.
...I just used ...[the script] to get rid of the people I didn’t want to sit with in the booth every day when I came down to have a coffee and shoot the #$%!. They can use the same file and sit in their own booth. Its no concern of yours, you’re just running the cafe and serving the coffee.
If you insist on making everyone sit in one booth you’ll drive people away. I’ll be gone, and who cares? I have this terrible feeling you don’t care.
We’re not going to be leaving a future for our children, or our children’s children, if we don’t care..."
- David Lewis

More from David Lewis -
Two excerpts from his letter to Jeremy Zilar at the New York Times

NY Times coverage of Gore's recent speech

2008-07-19T22:02:00.001-07:00

Discussed on Dot Earth here (Martin C.: "This should be on the FRONT PAGE..."; A.R.: " Perhaps you (like me) don’t get the print paper. The story on Al Gore’s new framing of the energy and climate challenge (the news story) was in fact on the front page. ").

Meaning here? (Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.)

Click to enlarge it; you'll need to.

Real Earth - Dot Earth comment filtration system

2008-06-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

[subsequently rechristened Dot Earth Defender]

Link to a (rather terse; it is 3 a.m.) writeup on the script.

Comments below, if you have any, please. Or send email - ncfocus2003@yahoo.com, with the name of our planet in the Subject line.

reality is that which, when you refuse to believe in it, doesn't go away...

"Gore's not running" and other misconceptions

2007-11-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

While collecting signatures for the Al Gore nomination papers to get him on the ballot in California, I've been hearing a lot of people give the same reasons why they don't see the value in signing; here are the reasons they give and my responses.

"I think he feels he can do more good outside the political arena."

Really? As a private citizen vs. as leader of the most powerful (and currently laggard) country in the world?

What more can he do?
"We need someone who doesn't come with partisan baggage, a fresh new face who can unite us."

Read the response to a related view at Gore, partisanship, and climate change, which begins:
One of the stranger things I sometimes read about Al Gore is that because he is so partisan, because he turns off a certain bloc of the U.S. public, he is flawed as a leader on climate change. Surely the issue deserves a prophet that's not so sullied by politics!
...

(In short: the sulliers are standing by, and they're pros - if a fresh new face appears, it will be sullied in short order.)
"It doesn't seem fair to make him go through that again - it's better if he stays above the crass business of politics"

Similar arguments were used by those who didn't want to give women the right to vote. And it will be his choice, in the end; the "Draft" of "Draft Gore" doesn't have any enforcement ability behind it.
"The disgusting press would label him so yesterday, and discard him."

I don't think the planet will let them do that, at this point. The news keeps rolling in. Plus the Vanity Fair article has put the press on notice, that we now have memories, and if they care about their reputations...
"I think we should let him decide for himself whether he wants to run."

If you were him, wouldn't you want to know what kind of support you had, before jumping in? If you'd support him, wouldn't it be good to let him know that?
"He's doesn't want to run."

He hasn't asked the Draft Gore people to stop. In 2004 he did. So, if he's not interested, he must feel that we're doing good by getting the word out.

He's said this needs to be a grassroots movement, to create the political will to address the problem. So if he is interested, we need to show the support he's looking for.

And if he wasn't interested, why would he have recently released 3 short videos on Current TV, on his positions on other (nonclimate) issues?
Why does he hum and pretend he doesn't hear Laurie David when she asks if he'll run?
Why did his post-Nobel press appearance not have a question period?
Why did he say he & Tipper would be taking some time to consider how best to leverage the Nobel publicity to move the cause forward?
Why did his next public appearance come with pre-screened questions?

To me it all points in one direction.
"And then there is the matter of the Hillary juggernaut."

If it's real. She has a good PR guy, this sort of thing is their specialty.
Lots of people are still undecided. Hell, I don't know who I'll vote for, if Gore doesn't run.

Recent CBS poll shows Gore only 5 pts behind HRC, without him having lifted a finger.
"I'm a member of the Green Party"

And how, exactly, is this helping the environment?

Don't change your lightbulbs, change your leaders.

Gore - speeches and writing

2007-10-31T00:20:00.000-07:00

Jan 2006 speech to the American Constitution Society. It's excellent.

His press appearance after winning the Nobel Peace Prize

Short video(on cameraphone) of him explaining what the climate crisis has in common with the invasion of Iraq

3 short 'issue' videos on Current TV here. Positions are good, of course - what can I say, he's intelligent - but I'd recommend watching the speeches first/instead if you have limited time.

Audio - the U.N. speech ("What were you thinking? Why didn't you act? Didn't you care?")

"Are we so scared of this challenge that we cannot lead?" - Moving Beyond Kyoto, published July 1 in NY Times.

Why I'm doing this

2007-10-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

Surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once you knew

...

__________________

by Drew Dellinger

Not many years from now our children will ask us one of two questions.

Either, in looking back upon the beginning of this century, they will ask

"What were you thinking?"
"Why didn't you act?"
"Didn't you care?"

Or they will ask a second question... the one I much prefer them to ask:

"How did you find the moral courage to rise and solve this crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?"

That is the choice we must make now. Not with our promises, but with our actions.
__________________

- from Gore's Sept 24 speech at the United Nations (via)

Scientific consensus

2007-10-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

Scientific organizations that have released global warming statements, from LogicalScience's The Consensus on Global Warming: From Science to Industry & Religion -

* National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
* Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
* Royal Society, United Kingdom
* Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
* Academia Brasiliera de Ciências, Brazil
* Royal Society of Canada, Canada
* Academié des Sciences, France
* Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Germany
* Indian National Science Academy, India
* Accademia dei Lincei, Italy
* Science Council of Japan, Japan

* Australian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
* Brazilian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Society of Canada
* Caribbean Academy of Sciences
* Chinese Academy of Sciences
* French Academy of Sciences
* German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina
* Indian National Science Academy
* Indonesian Academy of Sciences
* Royal Irish Academy
* Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)
* Academy of Sciences Malaysia
* Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
* Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
* Royal Society (UK)

* Union of Concerned Scientists
* Woods Hole Research Center
* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
* United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
* American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
* American Meteorological Society (AMS)
* National Research Council
* Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS)
* Federal Climate Change Science Program
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* UN Project on Climate Variability and Predictability
* American Geophysical Union
* Geological Society of America
* American Chemical Society - (world's largest scientific organization with over 155,000 members)
* Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006 - commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002
* Stratigraphy Commission - Geological Society of London - The world's oldest and the United Kingdom's largest geoscience organization
* Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
* American Association of State Climatologists
* US Geological Survey (USGS)
* National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
* NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS)
* Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute - Ocean and Climate Change Institute
* World Meteorological Organization
* United Nations Environment Program
* Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospherice Sciences
* International Council on Science
* State of the Canadian Cryosphere (SOCC)
* Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
* American Astronomical Society
* The Australian Meteorological And Oceanographic Society
* American Institute of Physics

It's real, we're causing it, and a scientific consensus exists

2007-10-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Coby Beck's How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic series, giving denialist claims vs. the science refuting them; covering similar territory, Skeptical Science.

Signature experiments exposing the current warming as human-caused;
Scientific consensus - list of science groups and their "global warming is real and we are responsible" statements;

Views of Bush's science advisor, Newt Gingrich, and The Pope;

19 graphs showing evidence of global warming;
The latest IPCC Report saying that climate change is so far advanced that serious damage to the environment is inevitable.

From NASA's James Hansen, Huge sea level rises are coming -- unless we act now