Despite all the spinning and hot air, the science is solid and global warming is a real, deadly serious concern. It’s time to deal with it.
That’s the final line of a terrific editorial from the country’s oil capital:
Of late U.S. public opinion has turned very chilly for the vast majority of the world’s climate scientists whose data demonstrates that human-generated emissions are heating the globe with potentially catastrophic results. Thanks to a confluence of events, some significant and others bogus, polls show Americans are increasingly confused about the reality of global warming.
After the election of President Barack Obama, the expectation was that the U.S. government would end the foot dragging of the George W. Bush administration and aggressively move to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. While the Environmental Protection Agency did classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant and the House of Representatives passed an ambitious energy bill with cap-and-trade measures to reduce emissions, the bipartisan version in the Senate sponsored by John Kerry, D-Mass, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., faces tough sledding.
The Copenhagen climate summit that was supposed to design a global climate treaty to succeed Kyoto instead produced little more than platitudes about future action. The worldwide economic recession made the costs of combating global warming less acceptable to both industrialized nations and their developing counterparts.
In the midst of that gloomy outlook came a pair of highly publicized incidents that were used to cast doubt on the validity of climate change theory.
First, hackers raided the computer system at the climate research unit of Britain’s East Anglia University and published thousands of scientists’ private e-mails. Global warming skeptics portrayed the communications as proof that devious researchers were cooking data to support a global warming hoax. That charge was decisively rejected by a British government commission that examined the e-mails. Although it faulted the scientists for petty and sometimes vindictive comments about their detractors, the commission found no grounds to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and is caused by human activity.
In a second flap, global warming disbelievers seized on a single misstated claim in a 900-page report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers will melt by the year 2035 as proof the massive body of science authenticating global warming was suspect. Although the evidence of retreating glaciers around the world is incontrovertible, a single error on a timeline was used to cast doubt on the U.N. panel’s work. [] is cooling rather than heating up. Brushed aside was the fact that globally 2009 was the second warmest ever recorded, and the past decade was the warmest ever measured by man. An analysis compiled by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies projects that this year may be the hottest yet.
As writer Elizabeth Kolbert points out in the current issue of the New Yorker, “The message from scientists at this point couldn’t be clearer: the world’s emissions trajectory is extremely dangerous. Goofball weathermen, Climategate, conspiracy theories “” these are all a distraction from what’s really happening.”
For those of us living in hurricane-vulnerable areas, keep in mind this ominous measurement: Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic main development area for tropical storms last month were the warmest ever recorded for March, already reaching levels typical of late June. The conjunction of several climate patterns combined with ongoing overall warming of the world’s oceans is thought to be the cause.
Despite all the spinning and hot air, the science is solid and global warming is a real, deadly serious concern. It’s time to deal with it.
More on the hurricane season ahead later.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
got the book! looking forward to start reading tonight. review to follow. ;)
Think something’s missing here:
“Although the evidence of retreating glaciers around the world is incontrovertible, a single error on a timeline was used to cast doubt on the U.N. panel’s work. (missing section?) is cooling rather than heating up. Brushed aside was the fact that globally 2009 was the second warmest ever recorded, and the past decade was the warmest ever measured by man. ”
[JR: Good catch. It's missing in the original, too.]
Fantastic editorial. Accurate, clear, and to the point. Hopefully newspapers all across the United State, and Great Britain, Canada, and Australia (the major denier news media countries) will follow suit.
Let us hope the Houston Chronicle does not depend too much on adverstising from the oil and gas industry…But then again, it is never too late to prioritize the truth ahead of the money. If the local oil and gas advertisers support this newspaper and editor, then there is hope yet for positive change.
The NY Times buried the report clearing the climate scientists on page 13 in a world brief from Reuters. The Times needs to fire its “environmental” reporters and get some who actually understand how serious the situation is. But I am not holding my breath.
This Houston Chronicle editorial is much better than anything we have ever seen in American magazines and newspapers, and I make a deep bow to them.
The Chronicle is going to take a lot of heat over this from modern day JR Ewings, which makes it that much more remarkable. Most people with a clue know what is really going on with the climate, including in the frightened newsrooms of papers like the New York Times, but it took a Texas virtue to pull this off: A set of balls.
I just checked the website of the Houston Chronicle, and the number of vicious denialist comments is far greater than the supporters of the editorial. It is a shame, but it is encouraging to see that the editor of the HC is willing to speak the truth even when it means that they expose themselves to such primitive abuse and low-brow feedback.
For the hard core deniers, this means nothing. It is just like those who continue, no matter what evidence is presented, to insist that they know the truth about the 9/11 and that anything else is all part of the cover up. I fact, I have already heard that idea… that no matter who, what body, which investigator explores the situation… it is all part of the cover up. Think the Kennedy Assignation plots.
We just need to understand that this will never go away as long as someone can exploit it for economic or political gain. Think Glenn Beck.
If it is not old news for you the latest research on the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctic ice sheet based on satellite measurement of gravity fields there shows significant ice net loss since 2002, and that the rate of loss is accelerating. There is hardly a more powerful dataset to indicate that the ice cap meltdown is underway and is probably near or past its tipping point. See Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 36, 2009 “Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE” (I. Velicogna). I am somewhat bewildered why this data has received so little attention since it was published. It does seem to be the “trump card” of proof of global warming, while we still waste time about various temperature records and proxies and their statistical smoothing and treatment.
I just sent the NY Times a link to this article. When a Texas newspaper gets ahead of a “liberal paper of record”, GOOD GRIEF!
The hard core Anti-Science folks will never go away but with solid journalism repeated over and over as FOX does for the opposition, I am convinced that the mainstream majority will be able to accept and deal with reality.
So NY Times, are you going to live up to your fiduciary responsibility of being free press and start reporting the biggest under-reported story in the history of humanity or do we continue to get pablum?
The editor of the HC is willing to speak the truth…but there is more to the story than temperature rise. The AGW deniers who use the Medieval Warm Period(world wide and much warmer than today)as evidence of the climate hoax refuse to admit other aspects of global CO2 emission increases.
Most important of them is: greater CO2 emissions and concentration mean accelerated ocean acidification. Global heat rise will be a feedback from increasing ocean acidification (diminished ocean sink for CO2) but it also means loss of marine protein.
Why we don’t stress that more vigorously is a mystery to me.
John McCormick
fyi – on the Houston Chronicle site, you can vote up or down comments without registration.
There are DEFINTELY some comments to be voted up or down.
Very scary.
Go vote in Texas.
Never thought I’d say that…
for the record…..The NY Times editorials are consistently strong – it’s the news room that is so terribly weak.
And nary a peep out of the Houston Chron’s science reporter on his SciGuy Science Blog?
The Houston Post was the town’s “liberal” newspaper until it went under. Several years after that event, the H. Chronicle, being the sole major paper of Houston, has tended towards the center (or what goes for the center here in the U.S.). But, no doubt, Houston is a conservative, democratic leaning, city. The oil industry folks tend to live outside of town in the suburbs and they definitely vote republican. I.E. Rep. Cumberbund, Mean Judge Poe, I’m A Wild and Crazy Guy Paul, etc.
The Chronicle has matured into a decent paper. The editorial board is all over the place. It depends on which members write what. The reporting on the energy industry is top notch and that’s what keeps many folks reading it. Their new columnists and new editorial cartoonist are excellent and remarkably centrist. Ed Berger, their science writer is very sharp and knows how to report a good story, though he finds it hard to keep his personal views hidden. Which appear to be: AGW is a real phenomenon, but it will be not such a big deal. To which I add – in case he’s reading – no kidding dude, no big deal for you and me but a freaking absolute nightmare for my kids and especially their kids.
John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas State Climatologist, writes an on-line column for the Chronicle. This editorial is very much in keeping with his communications, and I would not be surprised if he was at least consulted on this. Excellent piece.
A courageous editorial in the heart of old Oil country.
Dr. Nielson-Gammon has also started up his own Climate Abyss blog @ the Houston Chron. Expect it to fire-up like an oil-burner, if not a coal-plant, as hurricane season approaches.
A few thoughts as a Houstonian.
This article summarizes the issues well. The Chronicle is a good city paper, but the coverage it gives to the energy industry is lavish and forgiving. Industry news often make the front page and the customary angle of an energy news story is its impact on Houston (not the environment– although it published a few good pieces about fracking). The editorial page includes lots of guest columns by energy executives/consultants about the need for balance/the latest exciting news in fossil fuels. Also, George Will is a permanent fixture on the Chronicle editorial page. A few days ago I read a straight news story about a merger between two energy companies . Buried near the end of the story was a throwaway line that 80% of the plants of the new company would be coal-fired — as though this were hardly worth mentioning.
Houston Chronicle has a first rate science reporter Eric Berger who covers climate change frequently (he even posted an interview with james Hanson a few months ago .
But mostly the Houston Chronicle misses the boat on climate change coverage.
As always, the comments here are as helpful as the original, excellent editorial. All we need is millions of more communications like this in all mediums without a corresponding or larger number confusing the public.
One George Will column undoes the good that this does by a factor of hundreds (the number of papers that pick up his columns).
We can’t go all Faye Dunaway in Chinatown (“She’s my sister, she’s my daughter. . .”) on this issue and hope that the public understands it.
As noted above, the NY Times Editorial Board can get it while their reporters don’t (or pretend not to); at the Wall Street Journal their reporters often get it but their editorial board are dinosaurs, I’m afraid maybe literally. Same with the Washington Post.
But we need to offer praise and support for strongly-worded, concise and accurate pieces like this. In relation to much NY Times reporting about climate change, I’m reminded of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial when the NY Times printed the name of the rape victim against her understandable wishes, something that the National Enquirer refused to do.
When the editor of the Enquirer was asked why he didn’t print the name of the rape victim he said “Who do you think we are, the New York Times?”
Are you going to fill us in on your appearance before the senate committee?
[JR: Yes, but I'm in all day meetings thru Saturday.]
Mark, you can watch Joe Romm’s testimony here.
thanks very much.
I second Andy’s (15) thoughts on the Chronicle and reporter Eric Berger.
Some newspapers have come out with good editorials for climate action. Some people still read look to them for guidance. Perhaps the next one could link back to this post and/or others. (will try and locate other good examples)