This Huffington Post repost is by Peter Gleick, is Co-Founder and President of the Pacific Institute.
The most recent report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, “Global warming is undeniable,” and it’s happening fast. NOAA’s study, an in-depth analysis of ten key climate indicators, all point to marked and accelerating warming. This disturbing consistency should scare policy makers — if they were listening. As Derek Arndt, head of NOAA’s Climate Monitoring Branch clearly put it, “This is like going to the doctor and getting your respiratory test and circulatory test and your neurosystem test… It’s testing all the parts, and they’re all in agreement that the same thing’s going on.”
That “thing” is accelerating climate change.
Those few extreme policy makers and pundits who continue to deny the realities of climate change often point to “uncertainty” in the observations, models, and climate system itself that make perfect predictions impossible. Of course, climate scientists also talk about uncertainty all of the time — it is a characteristic of the science, not an excuse for politicians to avoid taking action. What the deniers don’t cop to, in a great example of selective one-sided argumentation, is that uncertainty cuts both ways. As Stephen Schneider, one of the world’s greatest climate scientists and communicator regularly pointed out, while there is always a possibility that climate changes will fall on the less severe end of the scale, there is a comparable probability that climate changes will be far worse than we expect, with far more serious consequences to the planet.
And this lopsidedness works in another important way. If we act to slow climate change, and the impacts turn out to be less severe than we predict, all we’ve done is reduce our emissions of pollutants, cut our economic dependence on fossil fuels from countries that fund extremism and terror, and boosted our economy with new green technologies and jobs. But if we do nothing, and climate changes turn out to be more severe than we fear, we’ve made things far worse than they needed to be.
And that’s what’s happening.
There is growing evidence from the real world that climate changes are accelerating faster than we originally feared and that impacts — already appearing — will be more widespread and severe than expected. This makes the arguments against taking actions against climate change not just wrong, but dangerous. We cannot expect climate deniers to change their tune: they’ve made up their minds, despite all new evidence. As Epictetus said, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
But to be a climate denier these days means sticking in earplugs, covering your head with a pillow, and then burying your head deeper and deeper in the sand. Why? Because new physical evidence comes in every day that climate extremes are piling up. I know it is harder and harder to find real news anymore. You often don’t get it from the cable “news” shows, which in a perfect world would be the gold standard on this issue. But there is climate news. And it is bad. And it is consistent with or even worse than what the climate models have been predicting.
So, I have a new proposal. Henceforth, just as we give names to hurricanes, I propose we name climate disasters after those who deny the reality of climate change in the face of incontrovertible scientific evidence. After all, why use generic names and tarnish all future Andrews, Betsys, Charleys, and Katrinas when we can remind ourselves that without these individuals’ stubborn opposition in the face of all evidence, we and our children could have lived in a world where these events were far less prevalent. And just for fun, I have some modest examples here:
The Inhofe Lake Mead Bathtub Ring: Water levels in Lake Mead on the Colorado River have dropped to levels not seen since the reservoir was first filled in the 1930s, threatening water supplies throughout the southwest, and exposing whitened rock rings around the lake’s edge. Over the last decade, the Southwest has suffered the sharpest temperature increase in North America, rapidly diminishing snowpack, loss of vegetation, expansion of forest pests, and rampant wildfires.
The Michaels Pakistani Floods: This summer has seen the heaviest monsoon rains on record in Pakistan.
The Monckton Russian Heat and Fires: It’s been the hottest summer ever recorded in Russia, with Moscow temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time, unprecedented wildfires in their forest and peat fields, a reduction in Russia’s wheat harvest by a third, and a big jump in heat-related deaths.
The Morano Greenland Ice Floe: A 100-square-mile ice island calved off from the Petermann Glacier – the largest ice island to break away in the Arctic in a half-century of observation.
The Ebell Ice-Free Arctic: satellite data show the Arctic Ocean area covered by ice this summer to be the second-lowest ever recorded – and the lowest was just a few years ago.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Heat Wave: The east coast of the U.S. experienced record-breaking temperatures this summer, again. It seems like we’re breaking these records at record-breaking speed.
Of course, climate deniers can’t take full credit or blame for each of these problems, but we’ll run out of names and associations of those promulgating misinformation about climate change long before we’ll run out of climate disasters. Though there are a lot of names in Congress we can use.
Related Post:
- The best argument against global warming
- 255 National Academy of Sciences members, including 11 Nobel laureates, defend climate science integrity: “There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.”
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Love it!
The Advancing CO2 aftermath is coming home to roost- and as the author above has said- faster then we had anticipated. The Planets sensitivity seems far more reactive to Greenhouse gases then was earlier anticipated by the IPCC in their 2007 report.
Hansen and McKibben hit it right with their ’350′ or bust theory- the planet is now reacting to nearly 400ppm.
As for those who shrilly continue to deny- as time goes on their message will be seen less, with the press ignoring them – the moments of fame they had-how fleeting will be gone & forgotten as the world begins to realize we are facing a very profound problem.
This is a very serious matter but naming disasters for deniers? Very LOL.
I’d save Inhofe’s name for the melting permafrost and subsequent release of methane into the atmosphere. Gas bag! But then again, there’s no reason that we can’t reuse names. With all the disasters already in the pipeline we may have to.
First on the list of future coastline changes: Bush Bay, where the state of Louisiana used to be.
Awesome.
Peter at 2 -
“Hansen and McKibben hit it right with their ‘350′ or bust theory- the planet is now reacting to nearly 400ppm.”
Given the period of around 35 years for the seas to warm in response to additions of GHGs adding to global stocks, the planet as a whole is now reacting to the ~330 ppmv of CO2 plus other GHGs in the mid-’70s.
Thus we’ll see what the climate destabilization off 350ppmv feels like in about 2022.
I suggest that 350.org’s title was chosen for reasons of assumed political expediency, not scientific analysis. With the first feedback’s acceleration having been monitored since the early ’60s (with CO2 then around 315ppmv), it seems pretty clear that from a scientific standpoint we need simply to restore the pre-industrial atmosphere.
Regards,
Lewis
I’m curious if there is any particular reason behind what gets named after whom. I love the idea, and would like it even more if we could name things after people who said on record that they would never happen.
The Rush Limbaugh Memphis flood. (I figure he has lots of dittoheads in that area.)
I like it!
Fantastic idea, love Inhofe’s item… This is really a great idea, especially for things that are going to become permanent like the Lake Mead ring. The fact that groups and people actively fought trying to deal with climate change needs to be remembered and this is the perfect way to do that.
Guillaume Tell (#5), that is perfect, love it. Lets add the “Bush Shallows” or the “Republican Shallows” as well, where the southern 1/3rd of Florida will be under the ocean by the end of this Century.
Great article. it is undeniably clear the climate “bear” we’ve been poking sticks at is getting a little ticked off and if we don’t stop now we’re all in serious trouble.
I suggested some time ago that in each capital city a plinth be erected – like the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square,London – and statues of the persons you mention be placed for future generations to see the “heroes” of the Age of Stupid. I for one would gladly contribute to such statues.
On Earth day each year global memorial ceremonies could gather at the plinths and remember the utter stupidity of mankind.
CP should run a competition for what should be written on the plinth. My contribution:
“We saved the world from the evils of socialism”
I’m a fan of “The Republican Shallows” in Florida.
I think, given their exploitation of 9/11, we could also name any damage done to Manhattan after them.
Great idea. As suggested in one comment above, I’d save Inhofe’s name for the melting permafrost and subsequent release of methane into the atmosphere. Furthermore, we will run out of deniers too quickly. Why not dedicate each name to a cladd of events and add a numbering to the sequence: Inhofe Melting Event 1, 2, 3, …
Given Monckton’s Communist/Socialist/UN World Government paranoia, I suspect he might be pleased to have a Russian disaster named after him.
Glacier National Park is going to be needing a new name, soon, too….
And Rush comes just upriver from Memphis in Cape Girardeau, MO.
I love naming the Russian disaster after Monckton. He’s a windbag that blows nothing but hot air.
@14 LucAstro:
“The Inhofe gass-off”
homunq:
I thought it was already settled:
Glacier National Park was to become Big Muddy Puddle Nat’l Park
This strategy is not without precedent. Because of Rick Santorum’s anti-gay pronouncements, gay people online started using the word santorum to describe something disgusting. Later it became the number one search result on the name and even influenced his election loss.
Humor aside, this kind of strategy would be too distracting.
BRAVO, BRAVO! But let’s save Inhofe’s name for something of greater impact. It should also be reserved for something that happens here in the United States just as Lord Monckton’s name should be reserved for a disaster of substance affecting the British Isles.
1) How about the Inhofe Dust Bowl of 2019?
2) The Monckton England Deluge of 2018.
3) The Joanne Nova Australian Mega Drought of 2021-2033.
4) The Steve Goddard Arctic Ice Cap Melt-down of 2025.
5) The Watt’s Super El Niño of 2024.
6) The Morano Swift River Floods of 2017.
7) Etc., etc. . . .
@18 Abe: Brilliant!
Daniel J. Andrews says:
August 17, 2010 at 9:38 am
Given Monckton’s Communist/Socialist/UN World Government paranoia, I suspect he might be pleased to have a Russian disaster named after him.
But I thought he said that Russia had 20 times more democracy than England?
Lewis #7
I guess 400ppm sustained in the system will indeed create a ‘new world’
if we make it 450- then 500 is an easy step away- I will be gone by then- still fighting in the here after with Inhofe and Lord Monckton. :-)
Palin Polar Bear Extinction Event.
I’m with you Abe@18! The next time he opens his pie hole about ‘climate non-change’.
Why not call this great extinction that we are entering into The Climate Deniers Die-off.
We are changing a brand today, with the help of the past week’s media stories connecting the extreme weather events with climate change. Deniers Distinction (arrogant big mouths) becomes The Deniers Die-off…
Seems that the “recent report” links at the top of your post no longer features the report. You might need to change that to http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html.
:( Why are my two comments under moderation while everyone else is not? :(
The Daily Telegraph (london) has a denier columnist called Christopher Booker. Can we find one for him? Perhaps if this year is the warmest on record (need to wait till New Year) this could be called ‘Booker Year’?
Don’t forget the Australians – they may have a new PM soon, who is a denier.
I think you need to link the catastrophe more closely to the denier position that helped delay or completely stall action that could have prevented or mitigated the impact of the catastrophe. With this in mind, I suggest the following:
Select major hurricanes that seemed to strengthen unusually over waters with SSTs significantly higher than normal, and designate these storms as “Pielke storms” in honor of Roger Pielke Jr. who has done so much to try and delay linking larger more intense hurricanes to AGW. If only one such storm was selected each year, these storms could be labeled, the 2010 Pielke, or the 2011 Pielke, etc. In some years, there might not even be a Pielke storm. We should definitely show Katrina as the 2005 Pielke storm, due to the rapid intensification over unusually hot Gulf waters after passing over the tip of Florida as only a Cat 1.
Senator Inhofe’s name should be reserved for major heat wave and droughts that are inflicted on the American states that will see much higher summer temperatures and heat waves due to global warming. The heating is expected to raise summer temperatures to very high levels over extended periods of time in a broad swath of states from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas in the west, across Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina… These “Inhofe heat waves” can be identified by the year as well; such as the 20xx Inhofe heat wave. (Heat waves that hit the Eastern Seaboard states such as North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland etc. could be called “Michael heat waves”; such that this year we could call the hot temperatures in the East the “2010 Michael heat wave”.) In addition, if an Inhofe heat wave develops into a full blown drought situation in the plains and southeastern states, these events can be called “Inhofe Dust Bowls”.
Since Monckton has repeatedly said that poor overcrowded countries will suffer from starvation if mankind tries to limit carbon emissions, we should reserve his name for massive loss-of-life catastrophes, such as the Pakistan flood. These “Monckton die-offs” could include either floods or droughts in Southern Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. “Monckton Extinctions” would be a list of species extinctions exacerbated or caused by global heating and rising sea levels. It seems particularly appropriate to link Monckton to these deaths and extinctions, particularly with his focus linking opponents to WWII atrocities and communist dictators.
I think Anthony Watts name should be associated with major droughts in California and the Southwest (I haven’t got a good tag name yet for these events); “Palin habitat destruction” (and perhaps “Palin Kills”?) for loss of forests and fisheries in Alaska, including tundra melt and coastal land loss, massive fires, forest die-offs, and salmon run failures; “Goddard Melts” would be years where the Arctic Ocean experiences huge losses of ice; and so forth.
And of course “Morano Fables” should be used for fictitious accounts of these events telling us everything is “just fine”, as long as business can do whatever it wants all the time on anything whatsoever. The people who believe Morano Fables will be known as “Morano Chumps”.
Unfortunately, the upcoming catastrophes provide a very fertile ground for this inventiveness…. but I need to stop for now.
We are entering the Bush Extinction
Awesome! Do it now!!!!!
1) The Great Inhofe Dust Bowl of 2018.
2) The Steven Goddard Arctic Melt-down.
3) The Morano Swift River Floods of 2015.
4) The Joanne Nova Australian Mega Drought of 2021-2030.
5) The Watts Solar Maxima of 2016.
6) The Monckton British Deluge of 2019.
7) Etc., ad naseum . . .
Limbaugh should have a species of hagfish named after him.
Delingpole’s Deluge of 2017…
Scott Brown in neighboring Massachusetts has had second thoughts about AGW
When New England suffers a hurricane like the Great New England Hurricane of 1938, or perhaps the flooding of Boston, or the erosion of Connecticut’s beaches—how about ‘Browns Hurricane’ or perhaps ‘Brownies Screw New England’s Heritage Rag’.
My apologies for the double post. :(
I think all of this has a massive schadenfreude component. I cannot avoid it myself. With each successive catastrophy I think, now everyone will wake up. They will DO something. I hope the first thing they do is run the deniers out of town!!!
Fantastic idea!
It would be fiercely critiqued but you shouldn’t listen to that. Just do it!
Some say there is a lack of names to name all the disasters. I really doubt it.
I want to say that Exxon, Koch and other companies definitely deserve a few catastrophes named after them. As well as little known people: how about the man who modified the scientific reports that were delivered to Bush’s desk?
Also think about the PR-firms and think tanks “the 2013 Heartland Institute food crisis”.
And don’t forget about the foreigners. Spain’s Antón Uriarte deserves one as does Czech president Vaclav Klaus.
Plus
The 2011 Rupert Murdoch Valentine’s day spring bloom.
The great Glenn Beck coral bleach episode.
The Fred Seitz European Malaria outbreak.
The 2010 Durkin Niger famine.
etc. etc.
Simply a great idea. Please use it, Joe!
Twitter, “Not connecting the Pakistan floods to climate change is like not connecting lung cancer to cigarettes.”
I have decided that I don’t like this idea. If followed to is logical conclusion we would have to rename Venus after Steve Goddard and I just can’t stomach the thought of that.
“I bought off on the ‘runaway greenhouse’ idea on Venus for several decades … [but] recently have come to understand that the theory is beyond absurd. … The first problem is that the surface of Venus receives no direct sunshine. … So why is Venus hot? Because it has an extremely high atmospheric pressure.”
See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/hyperventilating-on-venus/
I really like “Bush Bay.”
Logan’s Rush
Koch Lung
Fox Famine
Beck’s Melanoma
Cornyn Cataracts
Bastardi’s Blight
Exxon ocean acidity crisis.
Spread the word
For global warming in the down under: G. W. Bush fires
Just thought this might eb a nice addition to the humor blog:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/comics/king_curtis.html?name=Curtis
Thanks!
Z
No, no, no. Bush was merely the inheritor of the Reagan legacy.
The man who removed the solar panels from the White House roof in 1986 should be commemorated suitably. (In my view, with distilled essence of super-concentrated venom.)
Absolutely spot on.
Perfect combination of humour and truth.
Deniers try to come over as proud honest people.
So I am seriously wondering about creating a rock-hewn monument listing all the names of people who have written into my local paper to prolong the doubt. For now they may be proud of their plaque. The Marlow dozen!
But as I often say in my comebacks, I hope they stay around, have good health and a long life, so that they are around for the children to see – to see that they looked much like ordinary good people!
One more thing. What to do with Lomborg? I know he says he isn’t a denier – so he can reach the parts and oils the wheels higher up.
The Lomborg Sea Level perhaps?
Actually, on the subject of denial at the local level, in local newspapers, town hall, community meetings etc, in your-town, isn’t this where a particularly pernicious brand of denial can lie, undisturbed, and do a disproportionately high amount of damage (to community consciousness) whilst sweeping under the national notice net/noses? I bet there is much more small town denial bang – to the big oil buck?
While national media, and national campaigns battle it out and win – over and over – on prime time, hearts and minds are being lost, at the ‘local scientist and pillar of the community’ level, because no one is bothering to catch out these small fish, in the local pond, writing week in week out – in the smallville news! Hence how the man in the pub ‘knows’ it all to be a hoax and a conspiracy for green taxes :o(
By targeting and focussing professional big oil denial resource on a just a small handful of UK towns, the ones where the big cheeses tend to hang out as it were, (Henley on Thames for instance) a whole town community can stand united in righteous outraged unity against the nasty jealous hippies trying to tell them that the oil-gotten gains and wealth that mummy and daddy made, might possibly come one day to be seen as a being a tad tainted – with downstream carbon.
If this is true, small wonder denial lives on so successfully despite overwhelming odds:- odds of science, reason, humanity… logic…(you name it)
Denial is lurking in a small town near you… writing in to the Bucks Free Press, or The Henley Standard every week – and infiltrating the sub-conscious of the CEOs of large companies at dinner parties over the weekend – long before they travel in to work on Monday to read the truth in the FT.
Denial isn’t a global story – it’s profoundly local.