Tony Blair included a forward to a UK Met Office report on climate change [LINK]. It sounds like the report is the UK's own personal IPCC-style assessment, and it sounds like they aren't holding back, even invoking the holy of holies, the west Antarctic ice sheet. If that ice starts melting, which according to scenarios dreamed up by people like Jim Hansen could happen quickly once it starts, the southern ocean will be flooded with fresh water, heat uptake by the ocean would be shut down in a climatically important region, and sea-levels would immediately rise. It would be bad news.
The report is available: [LINK]
2006-01-30
Lovelock has a new book
Thanks to Renee for pointing out Jame Lovelock's latest essay to promote his new book [LINK]. Apparently instead of angering the earth, only to be crushed as it rebels against it, humans have made earth sick enough that it might go into a coma. I'm not making this up, it is in the essay.
This will probably set the mark for the most extreme serious climate change scenarios for this decade, giving us a feel for what the upper limit is right now. Of course, if we don't seriously think about what is happening, this extreme scenario might actually come to pass. Maybe not in 100 years, but maybe 150 or 200 years.
THE REVENGE OF GAIA
( I can't wait for the movie. I hope it is better than The Day After Tomorrow.)
This will probably set the mark for the most extreme serious climate change scenarios for this decade, giving us a feel for what the upper limit is right now. Of course, if we don't seriously think about what is happening, this extreme scenario might actually come to pass. Maybe not in 100 years, but maybe 150 or 200 years.
THE REVENGE OF GAIA
( I can't wait for the movie. I hope it is better than The Day After Tomorrow.)
2006-01-29
slick willy v. chilly willy?
Bill Clinton is talking about climate change; he says it is the world's biggest problem [LINK]. Clinton's VP, and former (only former?) presidential candidate, Al Gore has a supercharged powerpoint (or is it keynote?) presentation that has been turned into a movie, An Inconvenient Truth. It even premiered at Sundance, and is now looking for distribution:
I got a little carried away with those links, but hey, I was practically part of the production!!
I got a little carried away with those links, but hey, I was practically part of the production!!
2006-01-28
Washington watches climate scientists...
I know I'm not supposed to post a whole article, but I didn't think it would be right to just link to it. It is from NYTimes.com, and I think you should read it. It is freely available for two weeks on the NYTimes.com website, and then goes into the archives. Read the article, and don't tell anybody I put it up!!
January 29, 2006
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."
He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."
Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.
"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.
In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet."
The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.
Mr. Acosta said the calls and meetings with Goddard press officers were not to introduce restrictions, but to review existing rules. He said Dr. Hansen had continued to speak frequently with the news media.
But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.
But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal."
Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.
Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.
Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?"
Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy's statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.
"He's not trying to create a war over this," said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen's deputy at Goddard, "but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public."
Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy's office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.
In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.
"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.
One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department. For years, Dr. Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.
In an e-mail exchange on Friday, Dr. Goklany said that in the Clinton administration he was shifted to nonclimate-related work, but added that he had never had to stop his outside writing, as long as he identified the views as his own.
"One reason why I still continue to do the extracurricular stuff," he wrote, "is because one doesn't have to get clearance for what I plan on saying or writing."
January 29, 2006
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.
Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."
He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.
Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."
Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.
"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."
Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.
Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.
In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.
He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.
But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.
In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."
He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.
Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet."
The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.
After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.
Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.
Mr. Acosta said the calls and meetings with Goddard press officers were not to introduce restrictions, but to review existing rules. He said Dr. Hansen had continued to speak frequently with the news media.
But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.
In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.
Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.
But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal."
Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.
Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.
Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?"
Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy's statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.
"He's not trying to create a war over this," said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen's deputy at Goddard, "but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public."
Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy's office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.
In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.
"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."
The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.
Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.
One example is Indur M. Goklany, assistant director of science and technology policy in the policy office of the Interior Department. For years, Dr. Goklany, an electrical engineer by training, has written in papers and books that it may be better not to force cuts in greenhouse gases because the added prosperity from unfettered economic activity would allow countries to exploit benefits of warming and adapt to problems.
In an e-mail exchange on Friday, Dr. Goklany said that in the Clinton administration he was shifted to nonclimate-related work, but added that he had never had to stop his outside writing, as long as he identified the views as his own.
"One reason why I still continue to do the extracurricular stuff," he wrote, "is because one doesn't have to get clearance for what I plan on saying or writing."
2006-01-23
deSmogBlog | Clearing the air on climate change
I don't know if I've had a chance to direct you to desmogblog.com [LINK], but if not, you should take a look. It is maintained by Jim Hoggan, a Canadian lawyer, and the posts are mostly about the treatment of climate science in the media and in public relations. It has some really good stuff, and is often much more on top of news stories than I can be. From now on, you can also link to it directly from this blog's links menu on the right side of the page.
2006-01-18
Let's raise gas prices
There's an old saying that if Americans used public transportation at the same rate as Europeans (roughly 10% of total daily travel needs) the US would reduce its need for imported oil by more than 40% (at the current level of domestic production). Okay, it isn't that old, it is what the American Public Transportation Association says [LINK]. Being interested in public transportation, they also monitor how many people use it, and apparently people use it more when gas prices are high:
And the increase is even more in big cities (even LA!).
So with higher gas prices people take public transportation more. That decreases teh number of cars on the road which makes driving more efficient for those who do it, but decreases the petroleum products use by Americans. That decreases our oil needs, and also decreases the CO2 emissions.
Raising gas prices, through an at-the-pump tax, would then decrease traffic, decrease dependence on foreign oil, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. The money raised by the tax could be used for better public transportation, providing a positive feedback, since better transport will attract more riders, further reducing traffic, oil dependency, and ghg emissions. Why aren't we doing this?
"With high gas prices in the third quarter of 2005, national transit ridership grew by 3.3 % from the same period in 2004, according to a report released by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) today." [LINK]
And the increase is even more in big cities (even LA!).
So with higher gas prices people take public transportation more. That decreases teh number of cars on the road which makes driving more efficient for those who do it, but decreases the petroleum products use by Americans. That decreases our oil needs, and also decreases the CO2 emissions.
Raising gas prices, through an at-the-pump tax, would then decrease traffic, decrease dependence on foreign oil, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. The money raised by the tax could be used for better public transportation, providing a positive feedback, since better transport will attract more riders, further reducing traffic, oil dependency, and ghg emissions. Why aren't we doing this?
2006-01-09
need a larf? Check out APC.
Today I came across a link to the American Policy Center's statement on global warming [LINK]. Their statement is that there is no global warming, and the good scientists have proved it, and anybody who says different is part of a vast conspiracy to redistribute America's wealth to foreign powers. Yeah, because all of us on the left hate the USA. At first I was angry that such a statement, with such blantanly false assertions, could exist at all. After reading more, I decided that this statement was too funny to cause anger. In fact, I now see it as a classic work of satire. It is brilliant, on par with anything Swift could have written. I highly suggest reading it.
I haven't looked at them yet, but it looks like the APC article index is full of this kind of stuff. I think I have a new favorite site.
I haven't looked at them yet, but it looks like the APC article index is full of this kind of stuff. I think I have a new favorite site.
2006-01-06
grumble grumble...
Another dataset seems doomed to never be today. NASA has cut the funding for the Deep Space Climage Observatory, a satellite that was to sit between Earth and the sun and observe the entire dayside of Earth [LINK; DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5757.26b]. As a bonus, the satellite could stare back at the sun to observe solar activity like flares and CMEs.
Oh well, at least we have an infinite supply of Iraqi oil. Damn.
Oh well, at least we have an infinite supply of Iraqi oil. Damn.
2006-01-04
A public service announcement... A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Just a snippet I saw in wired.com today. Pete Townshend is trying to get the word out that headphones can lead to permanent loss of hearing [LINK]. This has been a common warning to people listening to loud music for many years, but I'm guessing the current generation of teenagers and 20-somethings should take heed. Ear buds and headphones are pervasive these days, and based on the amount of your music that I can hear from across a crowded bus, the volume is turned way up. We should all think about turning it down, to save our ears and also decrease the general noise (as I've blogged about before [LINK]).
2005-12-31
Ford addresses climate change, fails to take responsibility
I don't believe in using the "new year" as an opportunity for reflection. Instead, we should reflect on our lives and society every day, and try to make decisions that we can defend and be proud of. For those of you who might think of the new year differently, a recent press release by Ford might provide some hope for the coming year [LINK]. The corporation has issued a report about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and claims to be ready to do its part in minimizing emitted carbon dioxide. The report itself [LINK] reports on the progress Ford has made since 2000 in reducing GHG emissions, and says that they plan to do more. It seems like something to be optimistic about.
Don't forget though, that while Ford does now make the Ford Escape Hybrid, a SUV that gets a respectable 36 mpg (city, 31 hwy), it also produces the Lincoln Aviator (13 mpg city, 18 hwy) and the gigantic Ford Excursion for which I couldn't even find fuel economy numbers. I'm not saying this report is purely lip service, but like all giant corporations, Ford is mostly concerned with money, not carbon.
Just to end on an up note, it is nice to hear a corporation at least mention climate change as an important issue, and maybe that is a small victory that bodes well for the coming year.
Don't forget though, that while Ford does now make the Ford Escape Hybrid, a SUV that gets a respectable 36 mpg (city, 31 hwy), it also produces the Lincoln Aviator (13 mpg city, 18 hwy) and the gigantic Ford Excursion for which I couldn't even find fuel economy numbers. I'm not saying this report is purely lip service, but like all giant corporations, Ford is mostly concerned with money, not carbon.
Just to end on an up note, it is nice to hear a corporation at least mention climate change as an important issue, and maybe that is a small victory that bodes well for the coming year.
2005-12-30
Tropical storm Zeta, as in Catherine ... wuh?
Geez, I keep thinking the Atlantic tropical cyclone season is over, and new storms just keep forming. Tropical Storm Zeta formed recently [LINK] near the Azores. It's a weak, but pretty well organized. It's not supposed to strengthen much, and probably won't affect land in any important ways.
I am still having a lot of trouble believing that these horrendous hurricane seasons are really due only to something called the Atlantic multidecadal mode. The real upsetting part is that we won't solve the debate, at least not in a concrete way, for at least 10 years, and probably more like 25 years. Of course, if the hurricane "season" starts earlier and lasts longer every single year, some of the more skeptical hurricane experts might come around... we'll see.
I am still having a lot of trouble believing that these horrendous hurricane seasons are really due only to something called the Atlantic multidecadal mode. The real upsetting part is that we won't solve the debate, at least not in a concrete way, for at least 10 years, and probably more like 25 years. Of course, if the hurricane "season" starts earlier and lasts longer every single year, some of the more skeptical hurricane experts might come around... we'll see.
2005-12-21
the senate actually does something right?
While the House really dropped the ball by passing a bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the Senate seems to have stepped up a little, at least blocking that part of the bill [LINK].
Just to get very political and very opinonated for a moment...
What is the deal with Sen. Ted Stevens? The republican from Alaska seems bent on railroading domestic policy by getting billions of dollars wasted on huge projects in his home state. Remember the bridge to nowhere? [LINK] I can understand him wanting to get money into Alaska, but has this man no shame, and even worse no sense of pride in the natural (relatively unspoiled) beauty of his state? How can a state that has almost no people demand so much attention in Washington, DC? It is amazing.
Also, if you've been listening to any of the pundits or Congressional hearings, have you noticed that people trying to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling have stopped saying "wildlife" or "refuge?" They like to use ANWR as an acronym, pronounced AN-war. It is an old, but useful tactic. I hate marketing.
Sorry for the politics, but it's my blog.
Just to get very political and very opinonated for a moment...
What is the deal with Sen. Ted Stevens? The republican from Alaska seems bent on railroading domestic policy by getting billions of dollars wasted on huge projects in his home state. Remember the bridge to nowhere? [LINK] I can understand him wanting to get money into Alaska, but has this man no shame, and even worse no sense of pride in the natural (relatively unspoiled) beauty of his state? How can a state that has almost no people demand so much attention in Washington, DC? It is amazing.
Also, if you've been listening to any of the pundits or Congressional hearings, have you noticed that people trying to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling have stopped saying "wildlife" or "refuge?" They like to use ANWR as an acronym, pronounced AN-war. It is an old, but useful tactic. I hate marketing.
Sorry for the politics, but it's my blog.
A related blog
Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at wunderground.com has blogged about the Atlantic multidecadal mode, with a figure showing the AMM index even [LINK]. Unfortunately he doesn't give his references, although I'm sure he isn't making anything up.
The weird thing is that he says, "One of the leading theories is that changes in the ocean's salt content causes a speed up or slow down of the Gulf Stream, due to the fact that density differences between lighter fresh water and heavier salty water drive weaker and stronger ocean currents, respectively. This circulation (called the "thermohaline circulation") is thought to cause the warm phase of the AMO and warmer Atlantic SSTs when it speeds up, and cooler SSTs and a cool AMO phase when it slows down." This doesn't actually make sense to me, and I think Masters just got a little confused about some terms. The gulf stream is a result of western intensification... also known as a western boundary current. It is almost entirely wind driven; basically the trade winds blow the water south and west over the tropical Atlantic and the Coriolis force, conservation of momentum, and the existence of the continent (stopping the water from going further west) all combine to make a very strong, narrow current, which we call the gulf stream. There are similar currents on all the major western boundaries. The thermohaline circulation, as its name tries to imply, is driven by density differences of sea-water that arise from differences in temperature and saltiness. Thus, the two currents are fundamentally different phenomena (wind (dynamics) versus density (thermodynamics) ). My guess is that Masters just shouldn't have said "gulf stream" at all, as the rest of the sentence seems to implicate the THC. Even so, it is a useful post, and a good blog.
The weird thing is that he says, "One of the leading theories is that changes in the ocean's salt content causes a speed up or slow down of the Gulf Stream, due to the fact that density differences between lighter fresh water and heavier salty water drive weaker and stronger ocean currents, respectively. This circulation (called the "thermohaline circulation") is thought to cause the warm phase of the AMO and warmer Atlantic SSTs when it speeds up, and cooler SSTs and a cool AMO phase when it slows down." This doesn't actually make sense to me, and I think Masters just got a little confused about some terms. The gulf stream is a result of western intensification... also known as a western boundary current. It is almost entirely wind driven; basically the trade winds blow the water south and west over the tropical Atlantic and the Coriolis force, conservation of momentum, and the existence of the continent (stopping the water from going further west) all combine to make a very strong, narrow current, which we call the gulf stream. There are similar currents on all the major western boundaries. The thermohaline circulation, as its name tries to imply, is driven by density differences of sea-water that arise from differences in temperature and saltiness. Thus, the two currents are fundamentally different phenomena (wind (dynamics) versus density (thermodynamics) ). My guess is that Masters just shouldn't have said "gulf stream" at all, as the rest of the sentence seems to implicate the THC. Even so, it is a useful post, and a good blog.
2005-12-19
exactly how a democracy should NOT work
Can you imagine a group of surgeons standing over a patient, arguing about how to operate? The patient is lying there, anesthetized and oblivious, while a group of highly trained doctors argue. One refuses to allow any procedure to be performed unless he is allowed to remove the appendix. Another demands a pacemaker be put in place, even though most of the doctors don't see any need for a pacemaker. The belligerence of the pro-pacemaker surgeons means that the other must accept this ridiculous "preemptive" procedure in order to even perform the originally intended work. So they argue through the night, with the patient lying there the whole time, chest open. Finally, as they all get a bit punchy, wired on caffeine, sleep deprived, they reach an agreement. They'll do it. Now that they've worn themselves out by arguing about what to do, they go to work. One goes toward the appendix, since he added it to the pacemaker agreement, and some others start installing a pacemaker, having won that battle. The rest go to work on the original procedure, only to realize that all the space in the operating room, and all the surgical tools, are being used by the surgeons who are doing the other procedures.
Can you imagine that?
Well, that's pretty much how I view this weekend's marathon session of congress. I think the huge military spending bill is kind of like the pacemaker... unnecessary, but they had numbers so they get to do it. Drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge is kind of like the appendix. Well, I suppose it would be more like removing the spleen. It's there and doesn't do anything, but if you go in and mess with it, all kinds of hell could break loose. Maybe my metaphor could use some work, but it's at least as good as the legislation that was being rewritten all weekend. How are laws passed in this manner ever going to do any good for our society? Anyway, a description of the proceedings is available in the NYTimes, or any other newspaper today. Here's a little taste:
Great. Let's go get some oil!
Can you imagine that?
Well, that's pretty much how I view this weekend's marathon session of congress. I think the huge military spending bill is kind of like the pacemaker... unnecessary, but they had numbers so they get to do it. Drilling in the arctic national wildlife refuge is kind of like the appendix. Well, I suppose it would be more like removing the spleen. It's there and doesn't do anything, but if you go in and mess with it, all kinds of hell could break loose. Maybe my metaphor could use some work, but it's at least as good as the legislation that was being rewritten all weekend. How are laws passed in this manner ever going to do any good for our society? Anyway, a description of the proceedings is available in the NYTimes, or any other newspaper today. Here's a little taste:
"'A can't-pass measure has been added to a must-pass measure in order for the Republicans to give an early huge Christmas gift to the oil companies of the United States,' said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts." [LINK]
Great. Let's go get some oil!
2005-12-13
America, hide your shame...
Today's NYTimes editorial, titled America's Shame in Montreal is an indictment of the behavior of the US delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal. Here's a short bit:
The UN is touting Montreal 2005 as a success, with "more than forty decisions that will strengthen global efforts to fight climate change." [LINK]
It's hard for me to really know if anything interesting or substantial has come from Montreal 2005, since it was hardly covered in the crappy mainstream media, which has been my only real source of news lately because I don't have much time to read the in-depth coverage that I'd really like to. My first guess though is that nothing particularly interesting happened at the conference. Most likely a few countries (Canada, Britain, etc) agreed to keep pushing for more responsible energy policies, but no one agreed to actually do more than they are supposed to already be doing. The US acted like a spoile child, "In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the United States finally agreed to allow new discussions, but only after everyone consented to a huge escape clause saying any talks will be 'open and nonbinding,' and 'will not open any negotiations leading to new commitments.'" [LINK]
In the meantime, prominent climate scientists are starting to think about real-life The Day After Tomorrow scenarios. James Hansen, NASA Goddard, has an editorial essay in Climate Change that goes through some rather dire scenarios [LINK]. Essentially, he's worried that the response time of large icesheets (Greenland mostly, but also Antarctica) is only 100-300 years, which is similar to the combined time it takes for humans to see the climate really changing and then do something about their climate-changing activity. Hansen sees a scenario where water pools on the tops of the ice, causing melting downward, lubricating huge chunks of ice sheet, which then break off and plunge into the ocean. Sea levels could rise by several meters in a few years, displacing many millions of people in a short amount of time. It isn't a likely scenario, but we can't yet rule it out.
"For its part, the Bush administration deserves only censure. No one expected a miraculous conversion. But given the steadily mounting evidence of the present and potential consequences of climate change - disappearing glaciers, melting Arctic ice caps, dying coral reefs, threatened coastlines, increasingly violent hurricanes - one would surely have expected America's negotiators to arrive in Montreal willing to discuss alternatives." [LINK]
The UN is touting Montreal 2005 as a success, with "more than forty decisions that will strengthen global efforts to fight climate change." [LINK]
It's hard for me to really know if anything interesting or substantial has come from Montreal 2005, since it was hardly covered in the crappy mainstream media, which has been my only real source of news lately because I don't have much time to read the in-depth coverage that I'd really like to. My first guess though is that nothing particularly interesting happened at the conference. Most likely a few countries (Canada, Britain, etc) agreed to keep pushing for more responsible energy policies, but no one agreed to actually do more than they are supposed to already be doing. The US acted like a spoile child, "In the wee hours of Saturday morning, the United States finally agreed to allow new discussions, but only after everyone consented to a huge escape clause saying any talks will be 'open and nonbinding,' and 'will not open any negotiations leading to new commitments.'" [LINK]
In the meantime, prominent climate scientists are starting to think about real-life The Day After Tomorrow scenarios. James Hansen, NASA Goddard, has an editorial essay in Climate Change that goes through some rather dire scenarios [LINK]. Essentially, he's worried that the response time of large icesheets (Greenland mostly, but also Antarctica) is only 100-300 years, which is similar to the combined time it takes for humans to see the climate really changing and then do something about their climate-changing activity. Hansen sees a scenario where water pools on the tops of the ice, causing melting downward, lubricating huge chunks of ice sheet, which then break off and plunge into the ocean. Sea levels could rise by several meters in a few years, displacing many millions of people in a short amount of time. It isn't a likely scenario, but we can't yet rule it out.
2005-12-07
A quick article about hurricanes and global warming
I just came across a nice article in The Independent about the possible link between global warming and tropical cyclones [LINK]. Steve Connor writes a good summary of this summer's hurricane season and scientific debate.
2005-12-05
Harlan Watson, environmentalist
There's a little story in the Washington Post, by Juliet Eilperin, about Harlan Watson being potentially tied to ExxonMobil [LINK]. He's in Montreal right now as a "climate negotiator," where according to Eilperin he's "spent the past week in Montreal touting the administration's record on climate change." Apparently he's not that into talking about the Kyoto Protocol, or even what happens when it expires.
I'd like to be outraged, or even frustrated by these kinds of stories, but it is hard when we've had 5 years of it, with 3 more coming.
Ronald Brownstein is trying to keep spirits up by writing about state-level initiatives are getting greener [LINK], but it's a hard sell these days. I suppose we should all just start doing everything we can as individuals, and support these local and state-level efforts. Maybe that can do enough to get us to the next administration, which will hopefully be a little more environmentally conscious.
I'd like to be outraged, or even frustrated by these kinds of stories, but it is hard when we've had 5 years of it, with 3 more coming.
Ronald Brownstein is trying to keep spirits up by writing about state-level initiatives are getting greener [LINK], but it's a hard sell these days. I suppose we should all just start doing everything we can as individuals, and support these local and state-level efforts. Maybe that can do enough to get us to the next administration, which will hopefully be a little more environmentally conscious.
2005-11-29
the end of hurricane season
UPDATE:
Moments after I posted this little good-bye to the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, I learned tropical storm Epsilon had formed. Yes, the 26th named storm. It doesn't really have the nice ring that alpha, beta, and delta had, but it is impressive. It shouldn't do much, but that's what we all said about Delta. Here's a little pic of baby Epsilon; it is the blob of maximum water vapor in the middle of the Atlantic, on about the latitude of South Carolina.
As this record hurricane season finally ends, I have to admit that even I am stunned by the level of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. Tropical storm "Delta" has claimed several lives in a tragin end to a series of tragic - and epic - storms [LINK]. The season included two of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record (Katrina and Rita), and devastated not only the Gulf Coast, but large parts of central America (e.g., Stan).
Will next summer be even worse? Probably not. The last two years have probably been exceptionally strong. However, it is likely that next year will be a severe hurricane season. It doesn't matter whether this activity is due to the active phase of the "Atlantic multi-decadal mode" or because an anthropogenic trend in large-scale conditions, either way the short term (next 5-10 yesrs) is clear. Big, strong, and frequent tropical cyclones. And with more and more people living along coasts in ever more expensive homes, the total damage in dollars will continue to get worse with every season.
Rumor has it that there are some very interesting (and controversial) findings about to be published in the scientific literature about the global warming signal in tropical cyclone activity. I'm going to try to follow up on these rumors, and if I find out what is coming, I'll try to give a little synopsis here.
Moments after I posted this little good-bye to the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, I learned tropical storm Epsilon had formed. Yes, the 26th named storm. It doesn't really have the nice ring that alpha, beta, and delta had, but it is impressive. It shouldn't do much, but that's what we all said about Delta. Here's a little pic of baby Epsilon; it is the blob of maximum water vapor in the middle of the Atlantic, on about the latitude of South Carolina.
As this record hurricane season finally ends, I have to admit that even I am stunned by the level of Atlantic tropical cyclone activity. Tropical storm "Delta" has claimed several lives in a tragin end to a series of tragic - and epic - storms [LINK]. The season included two of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record (Katrina and Rita), and devastated not only the Gulf Coast, but large parts of central America (e.g., Stan).
Will next summer be even worse? Probably not. The last two years have probably been exceptionally strong. However, it is likely that next year will be a severe hurricane season. It doesn't matter whether this activity is due to the active phase of the "Atlantic multi-decadal mode" or because an anthropogenic trend in large-scale conditions, either way the short term (next 5-10 yesrs) is clear. Big, strong, and frequent tropical cyclones. And with more and more people living along coasts in ever more expensive homes, the total damage in dollars will continue to get worse with every season.
Rumor has it that there are some very interesting (and controversial) findings about to be published in the scientific literature about the global warming signal in tropical cyclone activity. I'm going to try to follow up on these rumors, and if I find out what is coming, I'll try to give a little synopsis here.
2005-11-14
Climate news
Since I've been too busy to post lately, here's a link to New Scientist's climate change section: [LINK]. Hopefully I'll be able to do more than this soon, but work is piling up faster than I can take care of it.... it's almost like studying climate is important or something.
2005-11-02
Misconceptions about climate change, or a Chinese conspiracy?
While waiting for a script to run today, I started browsing through the Climate Ark news feed [see Links Menu, right], and came across a crazy looking entry:
Reading this article, distributed by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, I couldn't understand what it had to do with global warming. This confusion resulted in spite of, or maybe because the article expressly ties archaeological data about the use of plants in Chinese towns 5000 years ago to carbon dioxide emissions.
The argument in the article says that "prehistoric" humans burned lots of wood for cooking, lighting, and making things. This required a lot of wood, requiring a lot of lumbering. Someone referred to as "Luan" says that the increase in carbon dioxide probably started before the industrial age.
Now, this was hard for me to believe. There are just so, so many things wrong with this story. Thinking maybe it had just slipped through the cracks, I looked around a little bit, and found that the story had made it onto Yahoo! News and also some site called ArchaeologyNews.org. It was also slightly rewritten on a site called sina.com [LINK], starting with the bold statement: "It is common sense nowadays that excessive carbon dioxide in the air caused by excessive lumbering leads to global greenhouse effects" (emphasis added). A search through GoogleNews shows 4 articles (Times of India, Xinhua, Shanghai Daily, People's Daily Online) carrying the same story.
What is wrong here?
First, there is the issue of "scientists" overstepping their expertise. This is an archaeology project, not a paleo-climate reconstruction. They are perfectly welcome to explore how plants were used in ancient China; that is a great project, and is probably very interesting for archaeology and sociology, and maybe even as an application of geochemistry and geochronology, but it is a far cry from doing a paleo-reconstruction of the composition of Earth's atmosphere. In fact, we have very good reconstructions (cf., the Mann et al. papers), which don't show much change in the pre-industrial years. There is some before the 1800s, but I don't think it is statistically significant.
Second, the report is focused on global warming attributable to cutting down trees. It goes further, suggesting that ancient people could have cut down enough trees to change atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. Okay, burning biomass releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but that carbon dioxide came from the atmosphere in the first place... there isn't much contribution unless you get carbon out of the lithosphere (rocks, like coal). It is still uncertain how much carbon ecosystems can suck out of the atmosphere and put into the lithosphere (by dying and rotting). Most people who think about these issues are dealing with areas like the Amazon rainforest and huge coral reefs, not the edges of forests in ancient China. The amount of wood harvested by ancient peoples, even integrated over all societies from 10,000 years ago to 1000 years ago, can't compete with what modern humans are doing. We have industrialized deforestation, whereas ancient people used what they could by chopping down each tree and dragging it back to the village. The assertion in the article is ludicrous.
Third, the article gives no reference and few hints for finding the study itself. In the Xinhua article, one name appears, "Kuan Fengshi," and one other one ("Luan") which after some investigation must be referring to Luan Fengshi, the actual name of someone at the university cited. I was able to find a web page in english that describes the project [LINK]. There are two English and two Chinese publications, but they are both about surveying the area, not about plants used by the ancient inhabitants. So there's no credibility here.
Finally, is there some connection between this disinformation and a Chinese interest in climate change being discredited (or at least weakened)? Afterall, China is a huge energy user, and to keep their economy growing at the crazy rate it has achieved lately, they can't stop to make things too green. I don't have any evidence that this is the case -- i.e., that China is purposely releasing misleading news about climate science -- but I think it is worth putting out there for now.
Global warming began over 5,000 years ago: "A SINO-AMERICAN team of scientists has disputed the traditional thinking that global warming, partly resulting from excessive timber cutting, is a relatively recent modern phenomenon %u2014 they argue it's at least 5,000 years old." (emphasis added)
Reading this article, distributed by the Chinese news agency Xinhua, I couldn't understand what it had to do with global warming. This confusion resulted in spite of, or maybe because the article expressly ties archaeological data about the use of plants in Chinese towns 5000 years ago to carbon dioxide emissions.
The argument in the article says that "prehistoric" humans burned lots of wood for cooking, lighting, and making things. This required a lot of wood, requiring a lot of lumbering. Someone referred to as "Luan" says that the increase in carbon dioxide probably started before the industrial age.
Now, this was hard for me to believe. There are just so, so many things wrong with this story. Thinking maybe it had just slipped through the cracks, I looked around a little bit, and found that the story had made it onto Yahoo! News and also some site called ArchaeologyNews.org. It was also slightly rewritten on a site called sina.com [LINK], starting with the bold statement: "It is common sense nowadays that excessive carbon dioxide in the air caused by excessive lumbering leads to global greenhouse effects" (emphasis added). A search through GoogleNews shows 4 articles (Times of India, Xinhua, Shanghai Daily, People's Daily Online) carrying the same story.
What is wrong here?
First, there is the issue of "scientists" overstepping their expertise. This is an archaeology project, not a paleo-climate reconstruction. They are perfectly welcome to explore how plants were used in ancient China; that is a great project, and is probably very interesting for archaeology and sociology, and maybe even as an application of geochemistry and geochronology, but it is a far cry from doing a paleo-reconstruction of the composition of Earth's atmosphere. In fact, we have very good reconstructions (cf., the Mann et al. papers), which don't show much change in the pre-industrial years. There is some before the 1800s, but I don't think it is statistically significant.
Second, the report is focused on global warming attributable to cutting down trees. It goes further, suggesting that ancient people could have cut down enough trees to change atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. Okay, burning biomass releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but that carbon dioxide came from the atmosphere in the first place... there isn't much contribution unless you get carbon out of the lithosphere (rocks, like coal). It is still uncertain how much carbon ecosystems can suck out of the atmosphere and put into the lithosphere (by dying and rotting). Most people who think about these issues are dealing with areas like the Amazon rainforest and huge coral reefs, not the edges of forests in ancient China. The amount of wood harvested by ancient peoples, even integrated over all societies from 10,000 years ago to 1000 years ago, can't compete with what modern humans are doing. We have industrialized deforestation, whereas ancient people used what they could by chopping down each tree and dragging it back to the village. The assertion in the article is ludicrous.
Third, the article gives no reference and few hints for finding the study itself. In the Xinhua article, one name appears, "Kuan Fengshi," and one other one ("Luan") which after some investigation must be referring to Luan Fengshi, the actual name of someone at the university cited. I was able to find a web page in english that describes the project [LINK]. There are two English and two Chinese publications, but they are both about surveying the area, not about plants used by the ancient inhabitants. So there's no credibility here.
Finally, is there some connection between this disinformation and a Chinese interest in climate change being discredited (or at least weakened)? Afterall, China is a huge energy user, and to keep their economy growing at the crazy rate it has achieved lately, they can't stop to make things too green. I don't have any evidence that this is the case -- i.e., that China is purposely releasing misleading news about climate science -- but I think it is worth putting out there for now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)