There Is Reason to Be Optimistic

Here is the short film shown to world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, called What's Possible, and its sequel, A World of Solutions; both are really well-made. You can watch them here, or visit the source.

"The process of changing the Earth back into a place that will support us is well under way. Progress is being made, and there is reason to be optimistic."

If CEO of Wayne Enterprises, President Beck, and God all say it's so, who am I to argue? ;)

Leonardo DiCaprio's UN Address

"None of this is rhetoric, and none of it is hysteria. It is fact. The scientific community knows it. Industry knows it. Governments know it. Even the United States military knows it. The Chief of the US Navy's Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear, recently said that climate change is our single greatest security threat."

Being an on-air meteorologist is no guarantee of climate change acumen, certainly, but what does it say about your meteorological credentials when a Hollywood actor has a greater command of the science and therefore understands the urgency of the situation better than you?

Then again, Watts can't even distinguish between what an author has a fictional character in a work of parody say...

"Stepping back from the forest non issue, there is another aspect of the NY climate conference spin which I find disturbing – the continuous emphasis on the need for 'widespread collaboration' and 'unprecedented cooperation.' Every time I see a reference to how everyone has to allegedly strive to sacrifice their own interests, and work together for a common eco-goal, to save the world, I remember something the famous author Terry Pratchett once said;

"'Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.'"

...and the forest conservationism and eco-collaboration and cooperation goals he campaigns for in real life.

I ask this in all honesty and sincerity. Is there one climate change denier out there with any grey matter left between the ears? We can obviously scratch Anthony Watts off the list.

Gee, I Wonder Which Marchers the Denier Dopes Will Obsess Over

Yes, the anti-nukes, anti-capitalism, anti-GMO, anti-whatever green kooks were gonna show up, too, duh.





Of course deniers will go cross-eyed looking for the crazies in the crowd, or make the ridiculously childish claim that, somehow magically, over 300,000 people got paid to take to the streets, or really reach away and assert both absurd things.

Because, you know, unless your march is 100% free of the lunatic fringe, it had no impact or didn't happen.

Steven Goddard Thinks Scientists Didn't March Last Sunday

You really gotta feel for the guy he's so freakin' clueless. He thinks the 97% scientific consensus is folklore (in a sense he's right, actually...it's probably more like 99% at this point), and scientists didn't show up in force for the march.

Must be tough living in the dark and so far in the past. Think he looks out his windows hoping to still see dinosaurs roaming around?

Patrick Moore Still Relegated to Anti-Science, Crackpot Outlets

A while back, I mentioned how some of the mouthiest and screwiest deniers are running out of places to peddle their ridiculous pseudoscience. Well, Patrick Moore seems more than happy to dash at breakneck speed straight into the Twilight Zone, where, I guess, he plans on attempting to convince its flaky inhabitants (or merely preach to their already brainwashed choirs) that anthropogenic climate change is somehow magically not an established scientific fact, and for which there is "no scientific proof at all." Ladies and gentlemen, meet his newest oddball friend, host of Freedomain Radio, and self-professed anti-statist and anarcho-capitalist (a personal title which seems to have no other purpose than to make people roll their eyes), Stefan Molyneux.



To give you an idea of the impressive size of Stefan Molyneux's tin foil hat, he believes not just climate change, not just acid rain, and not just pollution in general, but cancer is a government-controlled conspiracy. You read that right. Cancer is some kinda intentional, terror-inducing, government plot.

"Through the professional fear mongers, one wave of terror followed another. No more oil! No more food! Black skies! Acid rain! Dead seas! A new ice age! Global warming! Garbage overflows! Nuclear winter! Birth defects! Cancer!

"The deadly drumbeats of terror continued without respite. Scared of capitalism, industrialization, wealth and freedom, citizens surrendered more and more power to the ‘protection’ of the State."

Uh, Patrick, where the hell do you find these nuts, and why do you think their unhinged, conspiracy theory-loving audiences are good places to spread your pseudoscience? What's the end game here, Patrick? You being interviewed in a protective chamber with RF shielding by people who think electromagnetism is harmful to humans? Is that the next step to get your message of science denial out there to the world? How about you come back down to Planet Reality and stop courting these strange, marginalized cranks, huh?

Well, 2 out of 3 Ain't Bad, Mr. President

Unless your spaceship just landed on Earth 5 minutes ago, you're probably aware that President Barak Obama has had a very busy week. Well, I'm sure as president all your weeks are quite hectic, but this one perhaps especially so. If nothing else, he's been exceptionally active at the UN. He's made several speeches about issues with potential and confirmed global impacts and consequences. Let's see how they've been received, shall we?

It seems no one disagreed vehemently with what you had to say about the urgent need to deal with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, so you get a check mark here for overall public approval, Mr. President.



And your call to confront ISIL in Iraq did not upset many apple carts, so we'll check off another one of your messages at the UN as having met with widespread agreement.



Moving right along, you gave a speech about the immediate and future dangers of climate change, and — uh oh...



All these people below had little to say about your other speeches, Mr. President...nope, hardly a peep...and, yet, look at the shitstorm of infantile ignorance your climate change talk provoked from them.

• After an exhaustive search, one guy supposedly from your side of the political aisle was found to disagree with you. Wow, that's a crushing blow, huh? And he wears a bow tie, so you should probably just concede defeat now.
• Fox News is jumping for joy that it can nitpick some of your numbers, thereby avoiding the larger message.
• It's sensible to boycott the summit entirely, apparently, because some really idiotic deniers think climate change won't affect the poor negatively.
• Chip Knappenberger and the Cato Institute don't care what you say, or how ignorant of statistics it makes them look, 1998 is still their favorite year ever. To paraphrase Luther Ingram...
  
  

  "If loving you, 1998, is wrong, I don't wanna be right!"

• The tin foil hats at the Heartland Institute have their members believing action on climate change is "a giant wealth transfer scheme from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries." Figure that one the fuck out.
• Some couldn't even be bothered to listen to your speech, so they just repeated the same stupid crap you went out of your way to explain was no longer an acceptable excuse/response.
• And last but far from least, for one really demented denier, your speech proved some strange point about masturbation. I wish I was making this one up.

So, there you go, Mr. President. Even though what you said in all three instances was equally justified, due to abject science illiteracy on the part of climate change deniers, you can't win 'em all. Sooner or later common sense runs out of welcome with complete idiots.

Are You Deniers Seriously This Featherheaded?

Yesterday, at the 2014 UN Climate Summit, President Barack Obama acknowledged the political inertia in nearly every country around the world, including America, impeding urgently-needed, meaningful action on climate change.

From his speech (emphasis mine):

"So the climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it. The alarm bells keep ringing. Our citizens keep marching. We cannot pretend we do not hear them. We have to answer the call...But we can only succeed in combating climate change, if we are joined in this effort by every nation, developed and developing alike. Nobody gets a pass...Nobody can stand on the sidelines on this issue...If we can look beyond the swarm of current events, and some of the economic challenges, and political challenges involved; if we place the air that our children will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the hopes and dreams of all posterity above our own short-term interests, we may not be too late for them."

Here is the video of the talk he gave.



So, again, just to review, one of the president's main points here is that worldwide legislative lethargy, which he recognizes and readily admits still exists, can no longer be used as an excuse. He explained quite plainly and simply that we are already seeing the severe consequences of our inaction, and things will only get worse if we proceed with a business-as-usual mentality.

Not a difficult message to understand, I wouldn't think. I mean, at the very least you'd expect opposing viewpoints to not throw the ignorant, shortsighted reluctance of politicians to act on the issue, which he went to pained ends to address and eliminate as an acceptable, viable response, right back in his face, right? Right?!

Yeah, not so much.



Jaezuz.

Fooking.

H.

Cheeeeeroist.

On a skipping vinyl turntable.

Can you deniers possibly be this bloody stupid? He told you political challenges are no longer—

Wait a second, Americans for Prosperity. My bad. I apologize. I just now realized there was no way for you to know he addressed your retort about Congress being a bunch of uncooperative morons, or for you to have any knowledge of what he said at all, because you couldn't even be bothered to stick around and absorb the president's speech. Instead, you released your "response" beforehand, so you could, I guess, go play golf or something.

The fuck is that? You can't even make this demented shit up.

You Can Tell He's Exasperated for Real

Ladies and gentlemen, Jon Stewart. That is all.

My Unflinching Assault on Deniers Can't Hold a Candle

OK, fine, I get it. They're all much more gifted ambassadors for the planet than I am. I surrender. Stop the merciless cuteness already.

Impressive Turnout at NYC/Worldwide People's Climate March

I could not make it, but did any of my five blog readers go? Well, you may still be there, if you did, so no worries if you can't respond just yet. :)







Upwards of 300,000 people may have participated in NYC alone!

OFFICIAL COUNT: 310,000 people marching for climate justice at #PeoplesClimate March! pic.twitter.com/YGLavoKQBV

— People's Climate (@Peoples_Climate) September 21, 2014

And someone brought a drone to take aerial video. o_0



Some notable orgs and people in attendance in NYC:

• The Sierra Club.
• New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
• Bill McKibben and 350.org.
• Transport Workers Union Local 100.
• 1199 S.E.I.U.
• Mayor Bill de Blasio.
• Many scientists, including geologist James Powell of the University of Southern California, and paleoclimatologist Peter deMenocal of Columbia University, who appeared on Science Friday with McKibben to discuss the march.
• Senators Whitehouse and Sanders.
  

  .@SenSanders and I will continue to #ActOnClimate in the Senate. Proud to march together today. #PeoplesClimate #NYC pic.twitter.com/VzpvJd9cGd

  — Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) September 21, 2014

  
  And we've all learned how outspoken Bernie can be on the issue.
• Al "Deniers Can't Get Enough of Me" Gore.
  

  Proud to march with @ClimateReality at today's #PeoplesClimate march. Let your voice be heard: http://t.co/cTdCaa6JnM

  — Al Gore (@algore) September 21, 2014

• Leonardo DiCaprio.
  

  Seeing the impacts of #TarSands first hand with @SierraClub was a wake up call. #CleanEnergy now! pic.twitter.com/OvTYsBwXxU

  — Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) August 27, 2014

• Mark Ruffalo.
  

  .@UPS: Stop bankrolling climate change deniers in Congress http://t.co/Z8us3rY9th

  — Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) September 21, 2014

And there seems to have been decent turnout in cities across the globe.

Of course, we have predictable sour grapes and put yer head down, pretend it's not happening, and cherry-pick like mad type responses from the usual denier suspects. No surprise there, however, so moving right along...

The turnout is indeed impressive, and speaks volumes about the climate realist message reaching the ears of the general public. Unfortunately, march attendance does not guarantee meaningful policy, and may only provide more fuel for the nonsensical denier argument that climate change research is where all the funding and political influence lies. I'm sure that's how this remarkable event will ultimately be spun in the deniosphere. "Oh, the poor, underdog fossil fuel companies are so unfairly beleaguered and beset from all sides by the rich scientists and powerful activists! The march in NYC is proof!" If deniers can pat themselves on the back for one thing, it's how successful they've been at changing the subject whenever anyone points out where the real money and power resides. McKibben put it best in a New York Times article today (my emphasis).

“Our biggest problem is the financial power of the fossil fuel industry,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and author of “The End of Nature.”

“We can’t match that money,” he said. “So we have to work in the currency of movements — passion, spirit, creativity and bodies — and it will all be on display on Sunday.”

I'm hopeful, but I have my doubts about policy changing soon enough if everyone merely corrects/addresses in a calm manner the unending stream of lies these deceitful bullies spew. They need to be humiliated and crushed as vociferously as possible at every ignorant turn. Stupid needs to sting now. Because, as the old adage goes, nice guys finish last.

What Could We Have Accomplished with This Money?

That growing number above includes both the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. Even if you believe, like I do, that Afghanistan was a necessary military operation (however poorly-supplied and bungled), whereas Iraq was an inexcusable blunder right from the start (to put it mildly), you still have to admit we will end up wasting trillions in a region of the world where our true ambitions could not be any clearer.

And, no, I don't care that you're tired of hearing about it. I'm tired of trillions of American tax dollars continuously going up in smoke for the benefit of a few politically well-connected corporations, and then being lied to again and again about how — magically — nothing ever amounts to subsidy for these companies. No, really, our information-phobic economic system simply masks reality (if you had any anti-"lefty" interest in assailing the source, you will note that it's Forbes for both the previous, contradictory links, and thank you very much in advance for not being so predictable). Our tax dollars vanish, and hardly anyone cares to be, at the very least, honest about it. Talk about tiresome.

Let's just set aside the needless tragedy of all the American and Iraqi lives lost, and those lost by other countries, and how the real cost of this war can never truly be calculated in a meaningful manner. I will leave that grim discussion to more capable hands, because I won't do it justice. What I do wish to address is the fact that trillions of US tax dollars were squandered just so Big Oil could get its hands on Iraq's impressive reserves, when we could have invested it in our own energy independence and space-faring goals, and be well on our way to generating most or all of our electricity needs in a sustainable way (as far away from the reach of religious fundamentalist zealots as you can get, to boot), and maybe even a good chunk of our total national energy demands besides.

Know what else I'm not interested in, my little confused denier troll friends? Hearing how oil is not used much to generate electricity. No shit, geniuses. Why do you think I distinguished between electricity and total power requirements in the paragraph above? And, while we're at it, what exactly do you think these companies have been doing with their obscene oil profits, hmmmmm?

Send in the troops on somebody else's dollar, let them make the blood sacrifice to deal with the rebellion, saunter in to collect the spoils after much of the smoke clears, then use the revenue to take control of electricity generation back home where it's safe and comfy and cozy with no IEDs going off, suffer ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY for all the lives lost, and have conservative financial publications defend you so vigorously and rabidly your true, hidden business model doesn't even get discussed. Nice work, if you've got the right connections to pull it off.

Deniers' Second Favorite Organization: The US EPA

It's been wwwwaaaaayyyyyyy too long since I posted a well-made, informative, sensible, and scientifically-accurate video for no other reason than simply to irritate screwball climate change deniers no end. This one is from their second favorite government agency, the EPA.



What's their first favorite organization, you ask? Why, the IPCC, of course.

Can you hear that? Off in the denier distance? The eerie, wailing moan of grown adults having frantic tantrums that would make five year-olds facepalm and shake their heads?

"Wwwwwwaaaaaa!!!!!! Government officials and scientists are smarter than I am!!! Uuuuuuuuhhhhh-wwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Uuuhhhh-WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAA!!!1!!1!!!1"

I think I might just have to start a regular series here on this blog entitled "Just to Tick off Deniers."

One might argue that's the blog's main purpose, anyway. But, hey, when sending the point home, a little redundancy never hurts. :)

Sean Faircloth for President in 2016

I'm just gonna go ahead and make a little suggestion here on this blog. Ya never know. Something so innocent and initially insignificant-seeming as this could grow, spread around, reach the right ears...



I'll even wait patiently until 2020, if he needs more time to gear up and find the right campaign personnel. His party affiliation, you ask? Why, a new party of course. One which America desperately needs right now: the Reason Party.

OK, fine, he probably needs at least five or six years to get a presidential campaign and a new political party off the ground, but he is a gifted public speaker and he's right on so many issues. I'd even go so far as to say that the one major pillar of the Reason Party platform should be to revoke religion's tax exemption. That's right, no more mega churches soaking up vast stretches of valuable land that would otherwise contribute to the absurdly overburdened tax base. At a time when all government budgets are strapped — local, state, and federal — it is a stance that could influence voters.

Here's Sean explaining in his relentless, uber-rational, bulldog, rapid-fire way how blatantly perverted the ministries in this country and their financial abuses have become.



And he can more than hold his own in a debate, as we found out when he challenged Sam Harris on gun control, and, if you ask me, flat out won. That, my dear blog readers, is not to be taken lightly. Though Sam is human and cannot be expected to get every last social issue right, he is nothing short of an intellectual titan, who has reduced religious opponents to pathetic piles of irrational rubble, and in my opinion is such a talented and eloquent writer he deserves the title of the modern-day Machiavelli. If Sean can go toe-to-toe with Sam, there's no politician he needs to fear. And he has held public office before as a state legislator in Maine.

Also, as the title of Sean's book makes plain and obvious, he's not afraid to target the right people in Washington.

But if you need more proof of Sean's public policy chops, here he is in Oklahoma last year calling out Inhofe on his climate change denial, among other unacceptable stances the confused Senator takes.



I went to the Reason Rally over 2 years ago (man, where the hell does the time go?), and uploaded the great speech he gave there about becoming more involved in secular activism.



I take a little bit of pride in the fact that richarddawkins.net chose to link to my upload of Lawrence Krauss' Reason Rally talk, though the site opted for someone else's upload of Sean's speech, but I digress.

I say all of us in the atheist/rationalist/skeptic/secular communities, or even the public at large, make Sean Faircloth a write-in vote in 2016 and cross our fingers that he gets the message. Simply put, it is well past time an outspoken atheist ran this country.

Jennifer Francis 2, Elizabeth Barnes 0

It's really interesting, I think, to watch a nascent theory develop within a scientific discipline and get studied/modeled/debated/etc. in real-time. Now, they are by no means the only two researchers kicking the tires, so to speak, on this fairly new idea in climatology, but for simplicity's sake, and to keep score, we'll say there are a couple lead competitors duking it out over this supposition. There's Jennifer Francis on one side who believes Arctic amplification is causing large, lasting waviness, or meanders, in the northern hemisphere's jet stream and subsequent blocking and extreme weather patterns, and then there is Elizabeth Barnes on the other side who argues there is no statistically-significant evidence to support the notion.

Here are two papers authored by Francis on the subject:

Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes.

Cold winter extremes in northern continents linked to Arctic sea ice loss.

And one from Barnes:

Revisiting the evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in midlatitudes.

As the title of Barnes' study might suggest is the case, there has certainly been some intriguing back-and-forth between the two climate experts outside of peer-review, but the true test of any scientific theory is verifiability, or corroborating evidence from other researchers, and Francis has been in the lead on that tally. And now it seems she has just scored again.

We find that decreased sea-ice cover during early winter months (November–December), especially over the Barents–Kara seas, enhances the upward propagation of planetary-scale waves with wavenumbers of 1 and 2, subsequently weakening the stratospheric polar vortex in mid-winter (January–February). The weakened polar vortex preferentially induces a negative phase of Arctic Oscillation at the surface, resulting in low temperatures in mid-latitudes.

The game is far from over, but Barnes' side better mount an offensive soon, because something tells me Francis and crew ain't about to let up.

Celebrating My 100th Post with My 101st Post

On the advice of my psychic, acupuncturist, moxibustionist, life coach, feng shui harmonist, human quantum-body syncretist, chi divinator, de-qi meridian tonifier, rolfer, funeral clown, mime, interior decorator, mohel, plastic surgeon, oyster floater, teen exorcist, house sitter, extreme unicyclist, aroma therapist, numerologist, plant behaviorist, and my Bichon Frisé's psychologist (all one person, by the way), I remain ever vigilant and on the lookout for milestones and numbers that mean absolutely nothing. That's why I noticed today, a day late, that yesterday was my 100th post. Once I realized it, word spread quickly, however.







I like to think that one of the main points of this blog, to have some exquisitely satisfying fun at deniers' expense (because, I mean, if you can't exploit willful ignorance and unyielding dedication to abject stupidity, what can you exploit?), comes across loud and clear. But I have to admit things have been getting a tad serious around here at whac-a-troll lately, so allow me to celebrate my 100th post, or 101st post, or whatever the hell this is, by lightening the mood a bit with some good ole climate change comedy. Enjoy.

















Uh oh, snuck a couple sorta serious ones in there at the end, didn't I? By the way, funeral clown is a real occupation. Jussayin.

No, Wind Turbines Are NOT the "Cuisinarts of the Sky"

The Institute of Energy Research (IER) thinks it's cute (even cuter than I think I am with my video above, which is bound to tick someone off for no good reason...probably someone who doesn't read the whole post). Problem for the IER is its true intentions when spreading hyperbolic fabrications like this are rather plain and obvious: it's a well-known fossil fuel industry front with a vested interest in, shall we say, something short of true renewable power success.

And while we're at it, no, you cannot spray hot sauce into the air around thermal solar plants, hold out a plate, and get rewarded with a stack of Buffalo wings.

The report, compiled by the USFWS’s National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, describes the results of examinations of 233 carcasses of birds found at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) south of Las Vegas, the Desert Sunlight facility near Joshua Tree National Park, and the Genesis Solar project west of Blythe in Riverside County.

233 dead birds total at three power generation sites, and we are now gonna call them the "microwaves of the desert?" Puh-lease.

I guess that makes nuclear plants regular ole radioactive Tweetie meat grinders, and fossil fuel-driven power stations fine, feathered slaughterhouses on overdrive.

• Wind farms kill roughly 0.27 birds per GWh.
• Nuclear plants kill about 0.6 birds per GWh. (2.2x wind)
• Fossil-fueled power stations kill about 9.4 birds per GWh. (34.8x wind)

Buildings and windows the Winged Black Plague.

Building collisions, and particularly collisions with windows, are a major anthropogenic threat to birds, with rough estimates of between 100 million and 1 billion birds killed annually in the United States.

And pets named Sox or Mittens who have wrested control of the Internet from humans a veritable avian extinction event.

America’s cats, including housecats that adventure outdoors and feral cats, kill between 1.3 billion and 4.0 billion birds in a year, says Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C.

On top of this ridiculous fossil fuel industry-funded "cuisinarts of the sky" misinformation, you unfortunately get at least one misguided celebrity (who also happens to be a screwball antivaxxer) helping to sink a policy-making knife right into the back of booming renewables. It should come as no surprise to anyone that we have zilcho functioning offshore wind farms in the US presently.

Look, people, we all need to stop falling for these silly distractions and devious lies. Wind power generation, when sited properly and run with the habits and needs of local wildlife in mind, is NOT what birds, other animals, or the environment itself have to worry about. Watch the Audubon video below to find out what really is.



I know at least some of you mean well, when questioning wind power, but can we keep our binoculared eyes on the real prize, my little wayward birdwatcher friends, please? Thank you.

All Non-Apologies

My PR department and team of close personal advisors has informed me that perhaps my criticism of Katharine Hayhoe the other day was a bit shrill and over-the-top. And by "PR department" and "team of close personal advisors," I mean one long-suffering friend of mine who reads the blog and facepalms whenever I fly off the handle and start dropping f-bombs left and right.

Hayhoe does, after all, have the science mostly right, and she is trying to do something positive. If nothing else, she is starting a conversation about climate change in communities not entirely known for their science affinity and acumen, which, as George Marshall (no, not THAT one) points out, can be half the battle.

However, I won't exactly apologize, because, well...because, let's face it, Hayhoe ain't ever gonna read my silly little blog, and wouldn't care what I say if she did, anyway. Also, the larger point about the long, sordid history of the evangelical community, the Church, and religious people in general attempting to complicate and thwart scientific research and environmental efforts, and my frustrations regarding same, remain. I hinted at occurrences in the recent past in the final paragraph of the Moyers/Hayhoe post, but, truly, the problem goes all the way back to antiquity.

And even that is not the full aggravating story, because here's what really burns my bacon. Religious people try to suppress the research and findings, until they inevitably get out and spread among the public despite their best efforts, and then...dammit this freakin' pisses me off...they try to hijack and take ownership of the issue like they and whatever prehistoric Holy Book to which they owe allegiance knew it all along! Therefore, when I see Hayhoe smiling away on TV, trying to shovel a load of shit on top of all of our heads that the Bible and faith have been telling us right from the start to care for creation, I think to myself, "Fuck, here we go again, this time with climate change. They're gonna downplay or try to erase from the record what they've been doing for years — centuries even — and are still doing, and then portray themselves as heroes and ask that we all pat them on the back for finally coming around and embracing REALITY."

Ggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!111!!1!1!!1!!!1

So, while I won't apologize, I will at least provide some concrete examples of this irritating behavior (not every instance by any stretch of the imagination!), and thereby hopefully explain a little better than I did in the previous post why it infuriates me so.

• I've already mentioned religious zealots routing Hellenism and philosophy from Judea in a link above, and setting an anti-intellectual tone which lasted for millenia, and still plagues us today.
• You may have heard of people like Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, etc. Well, while they and those that came before and after them were being branded as heretics, their works were being banned, or they were being jailed and/or executed, powerful religious forces at the time were busy incorporating astronomical features based on their scientific findings into the structure of houses of worship. This was meant to solve simple dating/scheduling problems as well as wow the public into believing God had graced the clergy with special knowledge and powers that the unwashed masses lacked. Witness the Wells Cathedral clock, the Münster Cathedral clock, the Exeter Cathedral clock, the myriad of features at the Strasbourg Cathedral, the Lyon Cathedral features, and on and on and on.
• A Vatican astronomer and mathematician completed the creation of the Gregorian Calendar based on extensive Copernican heliocentric astronomical observations and data which he and the Church originally opposed vehemently. The Pope at the time then marched the new calendar around like there weren't powerful theologians who wanted to ban the works that made it possible, and who would ultimately get their way. Shocking, I know.
• Fast-forwarding to more modern times, concerned scientists and ecologists have gone through decades of this bullshit, and this crap, and this arse-backward nonsense, only to be told no worries, it's all better now.
• Young-Earth creationists like Ken Ham use the vague wording of scripture and preaching to claim they knew the science all along. And yet they have never made one meaningful prediction for us of the type that almost spills out of the research unbidden for a scientist (see Halley's prediction for the return of a certain comet you may have heard of).
• And perhaps most disturbing of all, some eschatological adherents within the religious community not only don't recognize environmental issues as a problem, they welcome their catastrophic potential, because, for them, it means Jesus, or whatever messiah, is coming back.

So, basically, asinine religious reactions to scientific discovery run the full gamut: deny the science, deny the problem(s) it predicts, applaud the onset of said troubling real-world event(s) because it means your Magic Guy is coming back to save JUST YOU, and, of course, smile away on Moyers & Company like none of this ever happens or needs to be addressed aggressively, and instead make screwball, smirky assertions that the vague, nonsensical language in your Holy Book had the problem covered all along. You know, don't worry, the morally-righteous crusaders are on the way to make it all right again.

And people wonder why I get ticked off...consider this your Sunday anti-sermon. You're welcome.

Computer Modeling Updated Again with No Denier Reaction This Time

Unless your spaceship just landed on this planet, like, uh, yesterday, or something, you're probably aware that climate change deniers constantly cry, moan, wail, and wet their diapers whenever computer simulations DO NOT PRECISELY MATCH OBSERVATION.

My, oh, my, how these infantile twits can carry on worse than a two year-old who wants out of the crib.

Strangely, though they demand perfection, they especially hate it when the data or algorithms upon which the models are based get adjusted/updated and results improve, even though near-exhaustive explanations for the changes are often provided. No, really, if you're not as childish and intellectually-lazy as Anthony Watts and Steven Goddard, you can find rather pedestrian reasons and clarifications after like five seconds of searching the Web.

Maybe strangest of all is the fact that when you ask these screwballs for an alternative future-climate predictor to replace the computer models they hate so much, this is the deafening response:



Yeah, I know. I can't figure these denier wingnuts out either.

You and I, dear reader, both know there's no comparison, but because deniers can't understand climate models or how they work at all, they look at them like, say, a really bad sweater that Grandma bought them. For some bizarre reason, they'll go ahead and wear an article of clothing they hate, rather than letting Grandma know what they really want for the holidays or their birthday next time, or just simply returning it and getting something different. If their ignorant, unhelpful reactions to models which include no descriptions of what they would prefer we use to make climatic forecasts are any guide, they have to think doing nothing but moaning and groaning out loud about Grandma's horrific gift to anyone within range of their voice will somehow magically make a situation they find untenable better. How I don't know.

So much to my surprise, deniers didn't make a single, solitary peep when this study was released recently, declaring that, by changing a critical assumption made by basically every scientist in the field and re-running the computer simulations over again, the results began matching observation much, much more closely.

Apparently, if you assume dark matter only has gravitational effects, and does not interact at all with light, your computer models spit out something that does not reflect reality and that looks like this with many unobserved dwarf galaxies orbiting larger galaxies like our own Milky Way:



Now, if you tweak the computer models just a wee-bit, and let the simulated dark matter interact ever so slightly with radiation like photons and neutrinos, you get something that looks a lot more like what we actually see when we look out at our galactic neighborhood which has very few dwarf companions:



Man, how did that modeling fudge and flip-flop escape climate change deniers' notice, not produce a flurry of puerile tantrums, and—?

Wait, wait, right, never mind. My bad. I forgot. Climatology is the only field of scholarly inquiry that deniers would prohibit from using and refining computer models. Everybody else, including cosmologists and astrophysicists, can do whatever they like with their digital simulations, and deniers won't care a lick or shed a single tear over the alterations. Nope, not one vicious accusation of hypocrisy or professional misconduct will be made. No email accounts hacked. No public misinformation campaigns funded and initiated by think tanks dedicated to science denial. Miraculously, none of that will go down as long as the scientists in question aren't climate experts. Sheesh, how did I let that absurd state of denier affairs slip my mind? Well, in my own defense, I guess that's what can happen when you don't obsess irrationally over one area of study, and instead you treat all scientists and their research, regardless of discipline, in the same democratic, levelheaded manner.

Note: Dark matter study analysis and pictures courtesy of Brian Koberlein.

Does Faith Really Require so Many Empty-Headed Smiles?

Here's Katharine Hayhoe on Moyers & Company all full of good cheer and bright smiles over God allowing the devastating effects of climate change to continue while her fellow politically well-connected evangelicals deny there's even a problem to address and conspire to thwart the enactment of meaningful policy.



How do you even parse this frustratingly fugazi'd faith clusterfuck, and why do the rest of us with something other than air and echoes between our ears have to? What the fuck is wrong with our species that we're so riddled with adult five year-olds running around like idiots believing in magical beings for no good reason? Where does it get these bozos and the rest of us again exactly? What is accomplished by faith and prayer that we would otherwise be lacking? God is all-powerful and benevolent, we're led to believe, and yet He not only can't be bothered to, I dunno, send a tiny jolting electric shock through Rush Limbaugh's microphone whenever he chooses to lie through his slimy, shill teeth about science and scientists, but also not a single, infallible, omnipotent finger gets lifted to prevent things like the drought Hayhoe believes is exacerbated by our GHG emissions. Somehow His Impressively Potent Creatorshipness lacks the will and/or ability to address simple lies as well as looming planet-wide catastrophes, and yet we're all still called upon to worship such a conspicuously absent, disinterested, apathetic Universal Slumlord.

Yeah, no thanks. I'll pass.

I've been trying to forgive and forget and warm myself up to the recent change of church-goer heart regarding "creation care" or "environmental stewardship," or whatever the hell they're calling it these days, but, look, if both Yahweh and members of his chaste flock who know better, such as Hayhoe and the Pope, ain't gonna go after Satan's agents of deception like Limbaugh with a little more vigor and determination, and all they're gonna offer us is some empty-headed smiles and nonsensical statements like "faith is the evidence of things not seen" (fucking figure that one out, why dontchya, and good luck), well, then I'm not terribly interested in extending ye ole olive branch. I mean, for fook's sake, at the very least rather than constantly walking around a meat-packing plant chanting pointless prayers, write your evangelical governor of Texas and your representatives in Washington telling them to start backing legislation that actually makes an impact as far as our emissions are concerned.

And shame on Moyers for not emphasizing more strongly how all those previous years of anti-ecological sentiment from the pulpit complicated environmental efforts and movements beyond just climate change. The Inhofes and Koch brothers of the world didn't just learn to misinform after research by climate scientists like Hansen and Mann started changing the discussion.

Your Local Weather...in 2050

This oughta really irritate some screwball, blabbermouth deniers. The World Meteorological Organization has begun releasing a series of videos in multiple languages simulating future weather reports from around the globe.



Fortunately, our little diaper-soiling denier troll friends on YouTube won't be sharting their unscientific blatherskite all over the comment wall, because the comments have been disabled for the playlist. Personally, I love when deniers are robbed of the chance to ruin a well-made video. Warms my heart to the core picturing all the infantile tantrums. Of course, my comment section is still there for any of them feeling exceptionally brave.

Hmmm...now, where did I leave my troll spray and troll swatter...?

Famous Atheists and Their Views on Climate Change

The thought occurred to me today that I may have only hinted at the fact that I'm an atheist here on this blog, a couple or maybe three times, without actually coming right out and saying it. It's now such an integral part of my life and thinking I often just assume people know somehow and don't need me to mention it. Well, I'm an atheist, so there you go; that clears that up.

It also dawned on me that I haven't personally seen/heard many vocal defenses of the peer-reviewed research behind anthropogenic global warming (AGW) on the part of well-known atheists, aside from Lawrence Krauss, and I haven't bothered to seek them out to double-check, because I have assumed their affinity for science and rational thought makes them take the stance that man-made climate change is real and dangerous. I want to put that to the test by nabbing some quotes, if I can find them. This list is by no means exhaustive, and I will update it with any additional quotes posted in the comments. You have my thanks and appreciation in advance for providing them.

"We started noticing around 2010 and 2011 that academic freedom bills [state-level bills that argue for the teaching of dissenting views of scientific concepts] were starting to bundle evolution with climate change. We also began to notice that there were occasional school board controversies. A teacher would, for example, show a film like The Inconvenient Truth, a parent would complain, and there would be controversy in the school or at the school board about whether there should be equal time given to climate denier information. We said, 'Wow, this is just like the creationism issue.'

So we hitched up our pants and decided okay, we need to tackle this."

- Eugenie Scott

"In the face of these obstacles, we have two choices: Give up and resign ourselves to living on Earth 2.0, with the possibility of vast and disastrous social and political upheavals due to changing temperatures, rising sea levels, and the like; or try and do something about the carbon that is already in the atmosphere. We made the mess, and it is our responsibility to clean it up for future generations."

- Lawrence Krauss

"...and many of them honestly prefer the Republican vision of cosmology, wherein it is still permissible to believe that the big bang occurred less than ten thousand years ago. These same people tend to prefer Republican doubts about biological evolution and climate change. There are names for this type of 'preference,' one of the more polite being 'ignorance.'"

- Sam Harris

"...and scientists recognise that the actual objectivity of scientific studies on global warming is politically impotent unless people believe in that objectivity..."

- Daniel Dennett

"The argument about global warming is not whether there is any warming but whether or not and to what extent human activity is responsible for it. My line on that is that we should act as if it is, for this reason, which I borrowed from Jonathan Schell's book on the nuclear question, The Fate of the Earth: We don't have another planet on which to run the experiment. Just as we don't have a right to run an experiment in nuclear exchange on this planet, we have no right to run an experiment in warming it either."

- Christopher Hitchens

"I mean, really, how careless do you have to be to lose an entire ice cap?"

- Thunderf00t

"I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth...

It's easy enough to believe that drought, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes are signs of a coming catastrophe from global warming, but these are normal variations of any climate that we -- and other forms of life -- have survived. Earth has undergone many serious changes in climate, from the Ice Ages to periods of heavily increased plant growth from their high levels of CO2, yet the biosphere has survived. We're adaptable, stubborn, and persistent -- and we have what other life forms don't have: we can manipulate our environment. Show me an Inuit who can survive in his habitat without warm clothing... Humans will continue to infest Earth because we're smart.

In my amateur opinion, more attention to disease control, better hygienic conditions for food production and clean water supplies, as well as controlling the filth that we breathe from fossil fuel use, are problems that should distract us from fretting about baking in Global Warming."

- James Randi

"In my opinion, if we seriously evaluated the ultimate value of different political issues, then every single political activist should stop everything we’re doing right now and work nonstop on global climate change — if we don’t fix that, then game over, end of civilization, nothing else any of us are doing will matter."

- Greta Christina

"Politics polluted the science and made me an environmental skeptic.

Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming. My attention was piqued on February 8 when 86 leading evangelical Christians — the last cohort I expected to get on the environmental bandwagon — issued the Evangelical Climate Initiative calling for 'national legislation requiring sufficient economy-wide reductions' in carbon emissions.

Then I attended the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, Calif., where former vice president Al Gore delivered the single finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard, based on the recent documentary film about his work in this area, An Inconvenient Truth. The striking before-and-after photographs showing the disappearance of glaciers around the world shocked me out of my doubting stance. Four books eventually brought me to the flipping point...

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism."

- Michael Shermer

"Yes. You could say that the human species is a threat to the human species. I recommend Al Gore's film on global warming. See it and weep. Not just for the human species. Weep for what we could have had in 2000, but for the vote-rigging in Jeb Bush's Florida."

- Richard Dawkins (when asked if global warming is a threat to the human species)

"Travelers like warm weather, not Hell."

- Bill Maher

"Oh, well. All I can say is that, thanks to the denialist ratfuckers, now everyone is going to be far more interested in reading the two papers by Lewandowsky and others. I recommend that you read 'Motivated rejection of science' (pdf) and 'Recursive fury' (pdf) now, or anytime — they’re archived on the web. You might also stash away a copy yourself. You make a denialist cry every time you make a copy, you know."

- PZ Myers

"We might be close to the end of humanity’s history because of environmental damage or because conflict could get out of hand – or more likely both, because each makes the other worse. But if we survive climate change and a rash of nuclear wars, we will find that we are still at an early stage of human development, an immature stage, barely adolescent, only just at the beginning of scientific understanding of the world, still wedded to infantile beliefs and practices that are holding us back and causing or exacerbating the harms that threaten our existence."

- A C Grayling

You may note the glaring absence of Neil deGrasse Tyson, despite his vocal AGW advocacy. Well, this would be why...



Unlike many atheists, I choose not to quibble with NdGT's position here, or accuse him of splitting hairs, and, while I'm always disappointed when otherwise rational scientists apologetically leave the pseudoscience door open a crack for religion, I can accept that he wishes to distance himself a bit from non-believers. For reasons I don't care to get into here (if someone is really dying to know, we can take up the discussion in the comments below), I think he has good reasons to take this stance and avoid declaring himself an atheist. However, that being said, I do take issue with him claiming that he doesn't have the time, interest, or energy to enter the anti-theist debate. Quite the contrary, he seems to have at least a small axe to grind with prominent atheists, and has questioned them in ways that suggest he wishes they were more tolerant of the intolerant. Again, I believe he may have his reasons, which I won't question too greatly, but I just wish he would be...oh...a little more honest about his rather obvious concerns and leanings.

Wait a Second...How Can We Be Responsible for 110% of the Warming?!

In a recent post, I marveled at David Pakman's surplus of patience for denier ignorance. Well, he's got nothing on Gavin Schmidt, who very calmly and meticulously deconstructed a ridiculous Judith Curry blog post last month about how much of the observed modern warming she believes can be attributed to human emissions/activities. Though I must admit Schmidt's high-octane mathematical expertise can leave me in the dust rather quickly, it's a fascinating read, and I encourage you, dear readers (all five of you), to dive in and tough it out until the end. Your knowledge of the climate change issue will likely double by the time you finish, whether or not you understand every last bit of it. Through it all, Schmidt shows the patience of a saint as he quite graciously entertains and rebuts line-for-line, more or less, Curry's absurd lukewarmer madness that it's a 50/50 human/natural variability split since 1950. I mean, Judith can really bury her head in the sand when she wants to, because at the very least it is three-quarters our fault.

Head on over and come back when you're done, because I want to address one remarkable-looking claim Schmidt makes, almost offhand, since for him and many climate experts it's probably just a throwaway, take-it-for-granted point. G'head, I'll wait here.

Back? OK, good. Look again at this graphic that he posted early on in his Curry blog-post takedown:


The probability density function for the fraction of warming attributable to human activity (derived from Fig. 10.5 in IPCC AR5). The bulk of the probability is far to the right of the “50%” line, and the peak is around 110%.

Schmidt correctly argues that Curry has no right to be puzzled about other scientists not agreeing with her wishful-thinking 50/50 split, because the vertical black dashed line representing her belief barely falls within the probability density function bell curve, and in fact the likeliest attribution level for human influence is 110%.

Now, while I'm certain that you, dear readers, are aware that I give 110% every time I sit down to update my blog, you may still be wondering how the freakin' freak-athon it is possible for anyone to be responsible for 110% of anything.



What does it even mean to attribute 110% of something, such as the modern observed warming?

Well, the fact of the matter is we not only can be responsible for 110%, but if you look at Schmidt's graphic closely, we can also be guilty of bringing about 115%, 130%, and even 150%! And the answer to this seeming mathematical impossibility is, I think, binary, the first part being common knowledge in the climate science community as well as the climate blogosphere, and the second part being pure conjecture on my part (I have not read the idea I'm about to put forward anywhere, and I am only assuming it to be the case, so I will take my lumps if I'm totally wrong).

OK, so...let's start the explanation with the factual part that ain't just my guesswork. Curry's 50% natural causes is horribly wrong, so horribly wrong in fact that the real effect of combined natural forcing (Milankovitch cycling, volcanic eruptions, solar activity, etc.) may have been to gradually cool the planet since before the Industrial Revolution, or about when our GHG emissions began overwhelming that non-anthropogenic trend and warming everything up, let alone since 1950 when our influence on the climate really started kicking in. That is, whenever you choose to start looking forward in the recent temperature record (Schmidt and Curry opt for 1950), the natural component may be negative, even, oh, -10%. Therefore in order to account for all the warming we see, humans would have to have contributed over 100%. Get it?

The second part is where I stick my neck out and probably meet with the guillotine. So be it. And I bring your attention to the "observed" portion of the phrase "modern observed warming." Ordinary people going about their daily lives and even scientists in the laboratory performing experiments or out in field conducting research are aware only of what they can observe, but that does not mean they notice all that there is to be observed! An easy illustration of this would be running through a crowd and noticing that you, like the big, inconsiderate, rushing jerk you are, knocked over ten people, but, in your mad, dashing hurry, failing to catch that they accidentally pushed over another ten when they toppled. So, whereas you only saw ten people fall down, you were really responsible for 200% of that total kissing the pavement. A rather classic and illuminating example of our limited observational skills from within the field of climatology itself is the Cowtan & Way study which filled in many "blank" areas of the globe where we cannot acquire firsthand surface temperature readings. Though we cannot witness or record the warming taking place in, for instance, the "Arctic hole" directly, that does not mean there is no warming occurring there. So while we all talk about 0.8C worth of warming happening since about 1880, there may have been more (most of it occurring since 1950, hence Curry and Schmidt's preferred starting point), and we most likely are also responsible for some or all of that unknown amount, and therefore to accurately predict what percentage we can, well, pat ourselves on the back for, we may have to go beyond 100% of the warming of which we are cognizant and for which we have empirical evidence.

There you have it, 110% human responsibility is now explained. And even if I'm wrong about the second conjectural speculation bit that I must admit I have not seen any climate scientist mention as part of their attribution calculations, the first part is quite satisfactory and sufficient as far as explanations go. As Gandalf would say, "Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer."

Despite Claims to the Contrary, Populartechnology.net Is a Denier Site

Back in February, the thinly-veiled denier site populartechnology.net posted an update to its attempted takedown of the pro-AGW consensus findings of studies like Oreskes 2004, and Cook et al 2013.

A few members of the scientific community apparently sung the praises of what the site admits is not a scientifically-rigorous effort but merely a cherry-picked list of papers it really, really likes (in the rebuttal section, it says, "The list is a resource not a scientific argument. The purpose of the list is to show that peer-reviewed papers exist that support skeptic arguments and to be used as a resource to locate these papers."), for instance...

"Wow, the list is pretty impressive ...It's Oreskes done right."

- Luboš Motl, Ph.D. Theoretical Physicist

And the blog post even includes a seeming endorsement from John Cook himself, and then goes on to label him as a "cartoonist," which a lot of deniers really, really like to do.

"I do confess a degree of fascination with Poptech's list..."

- John Cook, Cartoonist at Skeptical Science

One might assume after posting these two bellyaching rebuttals to criticisms of the list...

Criticism: Authors on the list are not scientists.

Rebuttal: Just like the WGII and WGIII sections of the IPCC reports, peer-reviewed papers from social scientists and policy analysts are included in the list.

Criticism: Authors on the list are not climate scientists.

Rebuttal: Climate science is a very broad discipline that includes scientists from a variety of backgrounds.

...that the site could at least attribute to Cook his proper credentials: the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.

But since the full quote was not even posted I guess I'm asking for a bit much, eh?

Anyway, curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to do my own parsing/analysis of poptech's study list. My Java code is here, if you are interested, and these are the results.

Before I get into explaining my take on the results, let me first address further diaper-wetting protests in the rebuttal section of the poptech post...

Criticism: Papers on the list are outdated.

Rebuttal: The age of any scientific paper is irrelevant. Using this argument would mean dismissing Svante Arrhenius's 1896 paper "On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground" and the basis for greenhouse theory.

That's swell and all, poptech, but, see, the problem is Oreske 2004, and Cook et al 2013, two studies with which you apparently aspire to compare and contrast your own, based on the quotes you included above your list, did not look further back than 1991. Had they done so, papers like Arrhenius's would have been tallied on their side, mmmmkay? So if you wish to do as they have done but with your anti-AGW blinders firmly in place so only the papers you like get selected, unlike the more open-minded approach of the other two studies, well, at the very least honor the same publication date range they did.

Criticism: Most of the papers come from a small amount of authors.

Rebuttal: Cherry picking the most prolific authors as representative of the entire list is misleading.

This honestly made me laugh out loud. So lemme see if I got this straight...an admittedly non-scientific, cherry-picked list of denier-friendly studies that everyone in the deniosphere still insists on crowing about and waving around as "representative" of peer-reviewed publications in the climatology field isn't misleading. Nope, it's only pointing out the frequency of the names of usual denier suspects on that list that's misleading.

Oooooooookkkkkaaaaaaayyyyyyy then.

Here are the highlights of what my Java code spit out:

The number of studies published before 1991 = 119
The number of studies published during and after 1991 = 1368
The total number of studies = 1487

The author credit tally...
Sherwood B. Idso 76 credits.
John R. Christy 43 credits.
Richard S. Lindzen 35 credits.
Nicola Scafetta 27 credits.
Robert G. Currie 27 credits.
Patrick J. Michaels 26 credits.
Robert C. Balling Jr. 26 credits.
Bruce A. Kimball 26 credits.
Roy W. Spencer 24 credits.
Ross McKitrick 23 credits.
David H. Douglass 22 credits.
Henrik Svensmark 19 credits.
Willie H. Soon 19 credits.
Craig Loehle 19 credits.
Nils-Axel Morner 17 credits.
Paul C. Knappenberger 16 credits.
O. M. Raspopov 16 credits.
Indur M. Goklany 16 credits.

119 papers were published before 1991, so they get tossed out on principle. And I mean, Jaezuz Fooking Cheeeeroist, if the US military made a set of most-wanted denier playing cards, you're looking at the royal end of each suit. Click on some of the links if you wish to find out why.

And one final dope slap for poptech. This crap ain't fooling anyone.

Criticism: Popular Technology.net is an AGW "denier" website.

Rebuttal: This is a dishonest ad hominem as we believe there is a scientific hypothesis called anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Cute and everything, poptech, but your rebuttal is as dishonest as creationists calling evolution a "theory." What you won't admit for some curious and cowardly reason is that you don't believe AGW is an established scientific fact like evolution. Nice try, but I'm afraid the verbal escape route you just tried to set up for yourself here has been dynamited and permanently closed off. Gee, sorry about that.

Do You Share Elon Musk's Pessimism?

"The biggest problem that we have right now is that we have a breakdown in the market system. Now, I'm ordinarily quite a big believer in the market, because the market is just the sum of individuals' decisions, but when there's a breakdown in the information system of the market, that's where things go awry. And so, because there's no price on carbon emissions, it makes things that are carbon-producing very rewarding, because the true price is not being paid. So, if you're a petro-chemical engineer, you can earn a tremendous amount of money, but you really shouldn't be earning that huge amount of money, because it's...you know...anyway, the market mechanism is broken. It's a classic economic problem: the tragedy of the commons."

- Elon Musk

In keeping with the spirit of yesterday's post, that we need to innovate our way out of this mess in order to preserve our modern and technological way of life, I think it's appropriate to hear from one of the most famous and innovative entrepreneurs alive, Elon Musk. He has, after all, released Tesla's patents in order to bring about an industry-wide acceleration of electric vehicle (EV) technology, though his outlook on our prospects as an industrious species may be less than sanguine.





I gotta admit he makes a strong point. We are facing an uphill battle due in large part to the strange way our oil-based economy is orchestrated and analyzed, with little or no recognition or factorization of externalities, and it will only get steeper the more we procrastinate. The dirty "secret" in the climate science community is that no one really talks about a 2C increase in temperature anymore. Many climatologists are contemplating a 4C increase by 2100, and that quite frankly, folks, all but guarantees a shitstorm of despair for future generations.

The research indicates that fewer clouds form as the planet warms, meaning less sunlight is reflected back into space, driving temperatures up further still. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery surrounding future climate change.

Professor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, who led the new work, said: "This study breaks new ground twice: first by identifying what is controlling the cloud changes and second by strongly discounting the lowest estimates of future global warming in favour of the higher and more damaging estimates."

"4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous," Sherwood told the Guardian. "For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet", with sea levels rising by many metres as a result.

Having said/posted all that, let's make something very clear here. There is a massive and glaring difference between Musk's pessimism, in light of the difficulties we may be facing, and your average denier. Musk is not asking that we don't even discuss the problem and just throw our hands up in inept despair. He has instead decided to do what he can within the confines of our economic system, both by manufacturing EVs rather than crying over technical hurdles and by attempting to stimulate the industry with the release of his patents. Again, the idea is not to voluntarily return to caves in the mountains, or to sit around and wait until business as usual forces us to do so. The idea is to do whatever we can to preserve the rather advanced society we enjoy at the moment.

Oh, Hank, You Commie You

"At the end of the day, the only way we are going to solve the climate challenge and the environmental challenge is to develop and deploy, in-scale, on a cost-effective basis, new technologies."

- Henry Paulson

A couple weeks ago, I made mention of a number of influential politicians, bureaucrats, and financial sector luminaries participating in the release of a bipartisan report on the economic risks of climate change.

One of them, Henry Paulson, the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush, has decided to take things a step further and launch an initiative to fund research and push for more aggressive action on reversing global warming.

Careful, Hank. You've seen how the screwball denial machine has tried to disparage another vocal advocate of climate science from across the political aisle, I'm sure.

And I really hope Steven Goddard is sitting down, because Paulson is starting this program in — dun, dun, ddddduuuuuuuunnnnnnn — China.



This video made me realize there's a very, very important point that I don't quite drive home hard enough here at this blog: we need to find ways to reverse man-made climate change while preserving our modern way of life. The idea is NOT for everyone to move back into caves, and grunt, "Ugh, job well done, Grog." The idea is exactly what Paulson intends with this initiative: get our best and brightest to innovate our way out of this mess of our own making. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that that innovation needs to not only prevent a return to the Dark Ages, but also to advance our technology and society as well and propel us into the future. It needs to align our means of powering our civilization with other ambitious human goals.

Entertaining and Lively Old Coot...I Like Him

George Marshall (no, not THAT one) has written a book called Don't Even Think About It - Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change, and just so happens to have more energy than most people half his age. His enthusiasm is infectious, and I think he makes a great point you may not have considered before. Have a watch.

Steven Goddard Relies on Al Gore for His Arctic Information

Most intelligent people interested in the real story of what's going on up in the Arctic due to climate change visit sources like the NSIDC and PIOMAS, or sites that use their data. That's how you get a clear and well-evidenced picture of the disturbing ice loss trend over the past few decades due to our greenhouse gas emissions.







Steven Goddard, however, trusts to his own interpretation of Al Gore's words, so he had the strange idea in his mostly empty head that the Arctic would be ice-free this year. Weird, because I thought that, despite being smitten, climate change deniers like Goddard were against what Al Gore had to say — you know, because he's fat and rich and all that deep and important stuff — and would therefore dismiss his opinion. Nope, turns out hopelessly confused trolls like Goddard are so hopelessly confused that they rely on Grandpa Al for predictions about the Arctic, and are astounded when they turn out to be untrue and more scientifically-accurate sources tell the real story.

Then again, who am I fooling? I mean, these screwball denier trolls have only had about half a decade to figure what Gore was really saying and what prompted it, but, surprise, surprise, they failed to do so.

Maslowski is on the record stating he thought it possible that we'd lose all summer ice cover in the Arctic by 2013. Let's do some math. That is 3.5 years from now. Gore said 75% chance in 5 to 7 years based apparently on personal conversations with Maslowski. You know what? Gore's statement was a conservative estimate relative to what I found Maslowski has said on the record.

Shocking that Goddard and crew are so embarrassingly lost, I know.

Man, Some of You Realists Are Incredibly Patient

Rupert Darwall has written a book entitled The Age of Global Warming in which he accuses the climate science community of blacklisting deniers McCarthy-style. No surprise, the Heartland Institute has featured it in its "Heartland Author Series," and raves about and congratulates Darwall for drawing the following ridiculous conclusion, among others, in his book:

• How politics “settled the science” of global warming in 1992 when the governments of the world agreed to the UN climate change convention at the Rio Earth Summit

Meanwhile, outside Darwall's strange assertions and the Heartland pseudoscience vortex, reality and the worldwide scientific community dedicated to understanding and explaining it continue to insist on settling the science of dangerous man-made climate change.

Darwall was given an opportunity to explain himself and his bizarre opinions on the David Pakman Show, and failed miserably.



Though he by no means let Darwall walk all over him during the interview (I especially liked the anesthesiologist analogy), I gotta say David Pakman is an exceptionally gracious and tolerant person, because my interview would have been much shorter and gone something like this...

"Wwwwwwaaaaaa!!!!!! No one will play with us when we're being crazy and ignorant!!!!!! WWWWWAAAAAAA!!!!1!11!!!11!!"