Latest Entries »

Canadian Scientists Muzzled

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 22, 2012

One of the biggest topics of conversation at the Vancouver meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science…is the lack of conversation that journalists are permitted to have with Canadian scientists. Even when Canadian scientists publish their findings in scientific journals, they’re not permitted to talk to journalists in a timely manner, if at all. Case in point: Last year Canadian government scientist Kristi Miller published what was deemed a “groundbreaking paper” on the decline of salmon populations in western Canada in the journal Science. She was not allowed to talk to the press.

Inter Press Service also reports that lobbyists for oil and gas industry interests appear to have easy access to scientists. What’s the bottom line on that? An 80 percent drop in Canadian media coverage of climate change since the Harper government put those restrictive guidelines into effect. Stephen Hwang, a professor of general internal medicine at the University of Toronto issued a statement, saying “The open discussion of ideas is essential to science, just as a free press is essential to democracy.”

The Bush administration instituted similar controls, which saw the world’s premier climatologist, James Hansen, shadowed by a political operative in his early twenties whose job, apparently, was to make sure Hansen did not speak to reporters. Some of those restrictive policies are still in effect under the Obama administration, according to Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who is quoted by Inter Press.

It’s probably not a coincidence that a January survey by the Pew Research Center of the top 22 policy priorities in the U.S. found the public ranking climate change at…number 22. The dramatic 80 percent decline in Canadian coverage of climate change is very likely linked to the restrictive Harper government policies. They also probably go a long way to explaining why the Canadian public also fails to see climate change as a serious issue; it ranked far down the list of concerns in the last federal election.

Out of sight, out of mind? It would appear so. Does anyone hear Nero’s fiddle?

Here’s the link to the Inter Press Service story:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106834

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

Leaker of Heartland Documents Reveals HImself

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 21, 2012

Big story today about the Heartland Institute documents that were released last week. Peter Gleick, a water scientist and president of the Pacific Institute — and a major voice trying to bring attention to the crisis of climate change — has admitted that he essentially tricked the libertarians over at Heartland into turning over the docs, which showed that the institute had plans to undercut children’s science education. Gleick has apologized, writing at the Huffington Pos, “My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts — often anonymous, well-funded and co-ordinated — to attack climate science.”

Among other things, Gleick’s trick — let’s call it that for now — revealed a list of corporate sponsors of the Heartland Institute. A Heartland spokesman said an apology from Gleick wasn’t enough and that the institute was consulting legal experts.

Heartland maintains a two-page memo that purports to outline the institute’s climate strategy is a fake. Gleick says that document was the only one he released that was sent to him by an anonymous source. He said he “solicited and received additional material directly from the Heartland Institute under someone else’s name to try to verify the two-page memo’s authenticity.”

This has set off quite a firestorm in the blogosphere and in more traditional media, with various folks weighing on whether Gleick was justified in his actions, or simply wrong. Gleick clearly subscribes to the latter point of view. The London Guardian this morning quotes Scott Mandia, co-founder of the climate science rapid response team as saying, “They (Heartland) also subvert the education of our school children by trying to ‘teach the controversy’ where none exists.” The controversy noted is the one Heartland and other right-wing think tanks, politicians, and fossil fuel interests are trying to drum up about climate science (aka “denialism”). Mandia went on to say, “Peter Gleick, a scientist who is also a journalist just used the same tricks that any investigative reporter uses to uncover the truth. He is the hero and Heartland remains the villain.”

Over at the New York Times, Andrew Revkin, who’s been writing about climate science for many years, said “Gleick’s use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others.”

I’m not so sure about Revkin’s claim; I think it’s grayer than that.  As a journalist I often lied about my real identity, posing at different times as a child pornographer, pedophile, and burglar to expose criminals. On numerous occasions the network investigative team of which I was a part received private papers and leaked government documents. Digging deep isn’t always pretty, and there are changing attitudes toward muckraking as it has been practiced going all the way back to Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair (“The Jungle,” his novel about the meatpacking industry based on his first-hand experience in the processing plants). In the case of the two-man team that I was part of, an international child pornography ring was shut down, and children who watched the network documentary (NBC’s “The Silent Shame”) that we aired on the subject came forward to tell their caregivers for the first time about what they’d suffered. One child, the sister of an abused girl, revealed her own abuse on camera; it was later verified by child care workers. So was I wrong to go undercover? Did I tarnish my career by lying to child abusers to get them to admit their crimes on camera? I don’t think so, and climate change is arguably a much bigger threat to the planet than much of what has long occupied the interests of investigative reporters, including my own efforts.

I think it’s easy to take the high road and condemn Gleick, but down in the trenches of muckraking it does get dirty. Always has.

Here’s the link to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/21/heartland-institute-leak-climate-attack

Here’s the link to Revkin at The New York Times:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/peter-gleick-admits-to-deception-in-obtaining-heartland-climate-files/?ref=science

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

Climate Change Denial & Geologists — What Gives?

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — 1 Comment
February 19, 2012

Okay, so the headline is a tad informal, but if you’ve followed the phony “debate” about climate change, you might have noticed that geologists appear to be over-represented among the so-called experts claimed by the denier camp; hence, the “What gives?”

What gives is that geologists who do not depend on Big Oil or Big Coal are firm believers in climate change. Why? Simply put, they’re scientists and given to a world view that tilts strongly toward rationalism. But a terrific examination of this issue — and one that is more interesting than it may appear at first glance — was sent to me by a friend who also happens to be a scientist. It’s a piece by John Cook, who is co-author of “Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand.” How’s that for a book title? Clear enough.

Cook makes a good case for his position at the website for ABC News:(http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/06/08/3226946.htm)
that geologists have been poorly represented publicly by the fact that two well-known skeptics, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter, do not hold views shared by the profession as a whole. Cook reports the following: a survey of earth scientists found that 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans are changing global temperatures, while only 47 percent of economic geologists — those who study geology with commercial exploitation in mind — agree that the climate change we’re currently enduring is caused by human activity. The professional associations are all in the believer camp. They include the European Federation of Geologists, the Geological Society of America, and the Geological Society of London.

Cook quotes that wonderfully wry observation of novelist Sinclair Lewis in explaining the discrepancy between the skeptical beliefs of geologists working for Big Energy and those who are not in the employ of ExxonMobil, TransCanada, and their ilk: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding.”

Cook goes on to provide a primer on climate change, then puts past climate change — long before humans — into perspective with a quote from renowned paleoclimatologist, Wally Broecker: “The paleoclimate records shouts out to us that, far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth’s climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts to even small nudges.”

Cook says we’ve already given our climate “a big nudge,” and that we know it’s causing global warming and doesn’t arise from natural causes because satellites have measured reductions in heat escaping to space — “direct empirical evidence that carbon emissions are trapping heat.” Also, measurements on terra firm clearly show that more heat is returning to Earth, which confirms the increased greenhouse effect. And then there are those winters warming fast than summers, along with other examples that he cites before concluding, “The case for human-caused warming is based on many independent lines of evidence.”

Cook offers this penultimate paragraph: “The feedbacks that amplified past climate change are now amplifying the warming caused by our carbon emissions. We’re measuring more water vapour in the atmosphere, a strong feedback. Arctic sea ice is disappearing and satellites measure less sunlight reflected back to space — another significant feedback. The Earth’s past and modern measurements all paint a consistent picture — our climate is already overreacting to our ‘nudge.’”

So according to Cook, peer-reviewed literature on past climate change “sends a strong message, in stark contrast to what we hear from petroleum geologists. Past climate change is not a source of comfort. It’s a cause for concern.”

Tags:
Comment

The (mostly) Upbeat Charms of Science & Climate Change

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 17, 2012

We’ve heard lots of bad news about climate change, population growth, and the slippery slope of positive feedback loops, so it’s a relief to pass along a story about the findings of a group of scientists and business people that met last June in Ontario. The Globe and Mail reports today that on Sunday the group will publish the Equinox Blueprint, which envisions battery-powered cars fueled by renewable electricity, widespread use of thermal power, energy efficient cities, and a world in which all people, regardless of their wealth, have access to clean, affordable electricity.

The obstacles to such a successful outcome are staggering; after all, energy demand is expected to grow by 35 percent by 2035, not decline, and that means massive emissions of GHGs into the atmoshere. But for a few moments, anyway, let’s just open up to the possibility that we’ll emerge from the current malaise of inaction on climate science into a world that takes forthright steps to construct a sustainable future. What might it look like?

The Equinox Blueprint says we could very well have those great batteries that can store lots of energy — tagged the “Holy Grail of clean energy research” — and make huge strides in the production of geothermal energy. Ah, the report also says we’ll need advanced nuclear power, then moves on to say we’d also have to engineer off-grid power, and “smart urbanization.”

Did you wince over the reference to nuclear power? I did. Who wouldn’t after the latest nightmare — Fukushima? But I don’t we should reject the entirety of the report because of that, especially when it appears that there’s much to think about in the Equinox Blueprint.

Here’s the link to the Globe and Mail’s story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/plotting-a-road-map-for-a-low-carbon-future/article2341616/

Tags: , , , ,
Comment

At Heart(land), it’s not about Science

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 16, 2012

Lots of attention devoted to the unauthorized release of documents from the non-profit Heartland Institute, which is well-known for attacking climate science. Among the headline findings gleaned from the documents are plans to promote a curriculum for U.S. schools that would undermine the teaching of climate science. Efforts to do so are already underway and often mirror the attempts to fight the teaching of evolution in public schools. In earlier posts here I’ve noted the work of the National Center for Science Education, which has long battled evangelicals and others opposed to the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools. A spokesman for the Center is quoted in The New York Times this morning as saying the climate science documents from Heartland show that “they continue to promote confusion, doubt and debate where there really is none.”

The documents reportedly show that Heartland plans to spend $1.6 million on what it calls the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change,” which publishes reports attacking climate science. Heartland, btw, is also noted for holding “Denialpalooza,” as environmentalists call the group’s lavish annual conference.

The documents say Heartland budgeted $200,000 this year for a plan to promote skepticism of climate science, a curriculum that would claim that “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy.”

In its story, The New York Times bluntly followed that quote with a breath of unequivocal fresh air: “It is in fact not a scientific controversy. The vast majority of climate scientists say that emissions generated by humans are changing the climate and putting the planet at long-term risk…” Nice to see the overwhelming scientific point of view stated so clearly when so many journalists feel it’s necessary to “balance” the climate change story with spurious accounts from flat-earthers.

Some of the nation’s biggest corporations are revealed in the documents as Heartland funders, though Big Pharma’s GlaxoSmithKline was quick to note that it “did not endorse or support their views on the environment or climate change.” Pretty much the same distancing from Heartland was evident in comments from Microsoft; a spokesperson was quoted as saying the corporation views climate change as a serious problem that should command “immediate worldwide action.” Microsoft says it gave Heartland software, not cash, as part of the assistance it provides to many nonprofit organizations.

No big oil companies were revealed as donors but Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation was noted in the docs for donating $25,000 last year, with another $200,000 apparently slated for this year. Koch Industries, as you may well know, is one of the U.S.’s largest privately owned companies and a major oil refiner. The Koch brothers — there are two of them — are huge supporters of right-wing causes and candidates.

I like The New York Times for this story, but the London Guardian has also been doing terrific work, along with many environmental bloggers.

Here are the links to the newspapers, first the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?ref=science

Here’s the link to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/leak-exposes-heartland-institute-climate

Tags: , , ,
Comment

Keystone XL Pipeline Petition

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 14, 2012

To perhaps satisfy your activist bent, head here http://grist.org/climate-energy/tell-your-senator-hold-the-line-in-the-tar-sands/ to Grist to sign a petition that attempts to stop yet another Republican effort to get the pipeline authorized. If you need a primer on why, perhaps this will serve: Keystone XL will be a 1,700 mile pipeline from the tar-sands of Alberta to the Gulf coast that will carry the world’s filthiest crude. It would be built by a company with a history of pipeline failures. Most of the oil will be sent to overseas markets (re: China) and it will provide far fewer jobs than Republicans claim, as every impartial analysis of the project has found.

Tags: ,
Comment

Steroids, Baseball, & Climate Change Video

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 14, 2012

Go to this link at The New York Times http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/on-home-runs-and-steroids-heat-and-co2/?ref=science for a witty, incisive, and edifying video on why steroids in baseball and climate change are alike. Go there particularly if you have friends or children, especially those with a penchant for sports, who need a quick primer on the subject.

 

Tags: ,
Comment

Killer Cold in the Andes, Europe

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 13, 2012

A few days ago I posted about the rising death toll in Europe from extremely cold weather, particularly eastern Europe; reports this morning say the number of deaths has now reached 550. But the killer weather isn’t restricted to the Old World. In South America hundreds have died, disproportionately children, from extreme cold and the diseases — respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia and bronchitis — that frequently arise in those conditions in poorer countries. What’s notable is that this is happening at a time when the Andes has experienced temperature rises — about .34 degrees Celsius per decade since 1974 — that have been melting glaciers at an alarming rate. About 100 million people depend on water from Andean glaciers for survival, and long term projections about the survival of those glaciers are daunting. But this kind of extreme weather response has long been predicted by climate scientists. What makes determining the extent of the changes in the Andes problematic is the lack of monitoring stations. As one official put it in a piece today in The Daily Climate, the Andes is in “the Stone Age” in regards to systematic climate research. So the reports of extreme weather are often anecdotal, and clearly subject to error; but anecdotal reports often predate empirical research — and there’s a lot of extreme weather down south to make researchers everywhere take note. What proves even more challenging in the Andes is that a single hundred square mile region can contain tropical forest and ice-capped mountains. Moreover, other factors trigger microclimate changes that can exacerbate extreme cold. For instance, when forests are razed, the ground has less cover — less insulation — and that can cause soil temps to rise and fall dramatically. The Daily Climate also notes that over-grazing can have a similar impact.

Meantime, it seems that an apt term — one that I used often in my novel “Primitive” — is “climate chaos.”  It’s not a term I came up with but I think it captures the often wildly varying impacts that climate change is having on what have been relatively stable weather conditions through much of humankind’s evolution. “Chaos,” it seems to me, also connotes the extreme (i.e. killer) nature of some of the weather we’re seeing.

The Daily Climate has a lot more on the human interest angles than I’ve summarized here. You can subscribe to TDC.  I like it a lot.  Here’s the link to the story about the killer cold in the Andes:

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2012/02/andes-extreme-cold

Tags: , , , , ,
Comment

Perverse Success: Gitmo “Greened”

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — Leave a comment
February 12, 2012

The U.S. military, say what you will, knows how to crunch numbers, and the energy costs they came up with for the States’ notorious Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, the “Gitmo” in the headline, triggered some actions on the energy front that would be good for the country as a whole.

So here’s the set-up: Basically, everything that keeps Gitmo going has to be shipped to the base because the U.S. has been occupying that part of Cuba since the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903. The Americans are not welcome, nor have they been since the dictator Batista was ousted in the popular revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Nonetheless, the U.S. naval base has remained a constant presence — and source of great Cuban resentment and international condemnation — to the present day. Gitmo became a huge headline when the U.S. sent accused terrorists to the base for imprisonment; some were tortured, all have been held in contravention of international treaties. Okay, enough said on that subject; there are ample sites to visit that will tell you a whole lot more about Gitmo and its crimes.

To sustain the occupation, the U.S. Navy spends about $100,000 a day on fossil fuels. That powers the military hardware plus trailer parks, tract houses, a church, McDonald’s, movie theaters and schools — the home away from home for the military. Then there’s the $32,000 a day just to keep the water flowing and the lights bright for the 171 inmates and 1,850 guards and contractors working at the prison camp. So the Navy got cracking on green power. It had to.

Windmills now sit atop G-bay’s highest hill; the Navy had hoped to eventually nab 25 percent of its power from the Caribbean trade winds, but when the windmills were installed seven years ago analysts didn’t account for the ongoing detention of prisoners, which has tripled the base population and escalated construction costs.

The Navy now has 24 small, solar-powered vans with rooftop panels. Another 1200-panel array has risen behind the high school. Artificial turf carpets the baseball field and soccer pitch. And Navy cops now patrol the base on bikes. They used to ride around in SUVs with lots of AC.

Mock utility bills are now sent to the troops’ homes to alert sailors about the cost of energy. One woman received a one month mock bill for more than a thousand dollars for the power at her single story ranch-style home. She shares it with her fifteen year-old son, a cat, and — get this — five television sets, including the one on the backyard patio. No comment necessary.

The Herald of Everett, Washington has this story. I was really struck by the odd confluence of aggressive green energy tactics and a blatant military occupation. But the military has been active on the green front for awhile now. In Iraq, for instance, the cost of keeping that occupation supplied was raised enormously by the consumption of fossil fuels, and sparked questions about how resupplying American troops, on and off bases, could be made more efficient with green energy. But it is ironic, is it not, that American bases abroad, used so often to make possible the extraction of fossil fuels, are providing considerable impetus for green energy usage within their limited spheres?

One further note: The Herald reports that NASA scientists are looking into whether G-bay could grow algae as a biofuel inside a floating field of waste-water discharged from the base.

The mind boggles. Here’s the link The Herald’s intriguing story:

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20120212/NEWS02/702129923

Tags: , , ,
Comment

Arctic’s Refrigerator Door is Open

Filed Under: Uncategorized by Mark Nykanen — 3 Comments
February 11, 2012

“Bitterly cold weather sweeping across Europe…freezing conditions…deaths of hundreds…extreme weather…” Get the picture? Eastern Europe in particular is undergoing a brutal stretch of cold weather — and it was predicted by climate science. Does it sound counter-intuitive to have “bitterly cold” weather and global warming? Listen up. CommonDreams.org — you really should subscribe — reports that “scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research have confirmed a link between the loss of Arctic sea ice and the development of high-pressure zones in the polar region, which influence wind patterns at lower latitudes further south.”

What’s happening is the melting of Arctic sea ice releases massive amounts of heat, causing the colder air to rise. That “destabilizes the atmosphere and alters the difference in air pressure between the Arctic and more southerly regions, changing wind patterns,” according to the report. Scientists say the Alfred Wegener study confirms earlier research predicting colder winters in western Europe as a result of melting sea ice.

The best analogy that I’ve come across to explain this phenomenon, in which the Arctic warms at frightening rates while southern climes grow very cold, uses the idea of a refrigerator door that’s left open. As the temperature in the refrigerator rises, the room grows colder. The “door” in this case was the stable pressure differentials that kept that cold air up north…but have been destabilized by the heat released from Arctic seas.

Here’s the link to CommonDreams.org:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/05-0

Tags: , , ,
Comment
Powered by WordPress | Theme: Motion by 85ideas.