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In the weird world of the MSM, the bigger the climate news, the less interested (or alarmed) so-called journalists seem to be. In any case, the huge 2007 arctic ice meltdown is in the process of being eclipsed this year. Neven’s outstanding Sea Ice Blog has the story:
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/
Both the Daily Graphs,
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/
and Long Term Graphs,
https://sites.google.com/site/arcticseaicegraphs/longterm
show the Arctic Death Spiral and how quickly it is all happening.
How the battle for water will reshape our world with Lester Brownhttp://climatestate.com/pure-climate-science/item/how-the-battle-for-water-will-reshape-our-world.html
Water shortage = food shortage
Less water = more pricey food
And water shortage + food shortage = desperation among the normally sanguine.
LESSON: ARCTIC SEA ICE DECLINE
Jennifer Francis, Rutgers University – assesses the broad topic of the Arctic Sea Ice Decline and explains seasonal impacts.
Increased probability of extremes: cold spells, heat waves, flooding, prolonged snowfall, and drought.
http://climatestate.com/pure-climate-science/item/lesson-arctic-sea-ice-decline.html
I’ve been recommending the video at your link every place I can. She’s an excellent lecturer and that vid is brilliantly edited. The subject she’s lecturing on is something everyone coming here wants to know about.
I love this website, and I read it every day. Joe Romm is to be congratulated for maintaining such an insightful, passionate and well-informed blog. However, I can’t help but feel depressed about the future, with a looming sense of dread. There’s just no doubt anymore that we’re 100% on track for the worst case scenario predicted by climate scientists, and 100% on track for collapse of global food systems, very likely within my lifetime (I am 33).
The ignorance of the general public – and the lengths which some corporations and individuals are prepared to go to, in order to hide the scientific truth – are beyond belief.
I look at my 5-year old niece and think, what sort of world is she going to grow up in?
For those who aren’t aware of it, I highly recommend watching “Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” and also check out the Venus Project.
Just watched “Zeitgeist: moving forward.” It was like watching a “best of TED” video collage–back to back to back. Rating: Provocative, Innovative, Informative.
Thanks for the recommendation.
Glad you enjoyed it :-)
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all/
I see that AIDS denialism is now a new running meme with the climate deniers. Apparently because most of the 34 million dead are black and African we can say it was a “false scare”.
34 million dead. How do you dismiss so many human lives as being unimportant?
I need to be a little careful with my language here because I am so very very angry at this.
Denialism seems to be rampid today, FEARFUL people can’t cope with change or threats that they have no direct control over. Fear is at the heart of denialism, they are also the promoters of fear in others. It gives them the illusion of control when there is none. Fearful people will say hateful things to feel less afraid.
Picture the people that say these hateful things as crouching, sniveling little balls of fear. It helps put them in perspective.
I lived in Africa for a number of years, so if I dont regard 30 odd million Africans dying as just a bit of a laugh you will have to forgive me.
Had it been 34 million white Americans dead from AIDs I doubt Riddley would have been quite so blase about it.
Denialists are 99.999% Rightwingers. For the Right the deaths of 34 million Africans, gays, IV drug users etc is not a matter for regret. One of the crucial problems holding us back is a refusal to acknowledge the true nature of the enemy. Not the ‘conservative’, ignorant, ill-informed, brainwashed, but basically decent, who denies anything on the Left, but will one day wake up and regret his folly. No I mean the hard Right, the Bosses and their acolytes, the MSM hatemongers and fearmongers. These are thoroughly wicked and dangerous people, and unless we keep that horrific truth in mind, they will keep on winning.
Matt Ridley is clearly a tool of the 1% and is sadly behind in events in the Arctic going by this extract:
How many straw men can be found in that dreadful apology for the truth I wonder? I have noted a few without going beyond page 1.
Here is an example:
Ridley, if you read this, Pachauri was not indicating that the world would end in 2012 but that the temperature rises required to establish the system’s thermal equilibrium would already be built in because of the added anthropogenic CO2 at that stage. The temperatures will continue to increase even if we stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow. You clearly do not understand climate science Mr Ridley and I suggest a dose of Raymond T. Pierrehumbert’s ‘Principles of Planetary Climate‘
Did you follow Ridley’s Keystone Kop like travails as failed bankster in the Northern Rock fiasco? Naturally seeing every one of his selfish neo-liberal nostrums refuted utterly by experience has made no difference to his ideological zealotry. He earned a lazy 300 grand sterling a year while running Northern Rock, but that’s chicken feed beside his hereditary wealth as a Viscount with a huge estate, baronial hall etc. This type invariably adore the ineffable advantages of plutocracy and market absolutist capitalism, because in enriches and empowers them even more.
Is the Green Party a major obstacle to a climate policy?
In 1996 and 2000, the Democrat would have won the Presidency if Green Party candidate Ralph Nader didn’t siphon votes from them.
In 2010, Tea Party candidate Joe Walsh won in Illinois beating Democratic incumbent Representative Melisa Bean by 291 votes. The Green Party Candidate took 6,494 votes (3.3%). How many other places did this happen?
Yes, we could use a strong 3rd party advocating for the environment. But, consider the situation we are in, the consequences and the amount of time left to enact policy. Perhaps the Green Party could further their goals better by advocacy and throwing votes to environmental candidate who might actually win. We don’t have time for rigid, idealistic positions.
What exactly are the main obstacle with Democrats adopting the green agenda?
Fear
The economic and ideological interests of their business owners. Who controls the Demopublican Parties? It certainly isn’t the ‘average Joe’.
Frank, you seem worried that Greens did / will spoil an election. Frankly, I am much more worried that the two major parties have spoiled Earth for the rest of us.
Yah, they seem to stray with pressure and contributions. It is necessary to put constant pressure on all politicians, especially our own representatives.
We need to identify our representative’s chief of staff, environmental person and campaign manager. Individuals and groups need to send them fairly frequent data and talking points supporting our positions. Also, calls, visits, LTEs,
Melissa Bean won her election in a marginal district with an outpouring of support from progressive volunteers. In office she became the representative from Goldman Sachs. She entirely closed her door to those who had worked to elect her. She did not bother to perform constituent service, save as GS was her constituent. No surprise she had few volunteers when she ran for re-election.
She sounds like a clone of Obama.
In Lester Brown’s latest book “World on the Edge” he lay’s out just how bad world food and water issues will be if we don’t get on top of CO2 emissions. But the impacts that all the Climate Science community are warning us about are happening years earlier than the predictions. A lot of what we are seeing now wasn’t suppose to happen, at our BAU levels, until 2050. By 2015 if we don’t get the global agreement and be hard at work to get emissions way down we may be seeing 2050 predictions happening by 2020. How did we get so disconnected from the natural world that gives life to our planet?
Great question! I’ve been researching this question and there are three seminal figures who originated this disconnection: 1) Francis Bacon, who justified the enslavement of Nature using the machines of the industrial revolution, 2) Rene Descartes who justified the enslavement of animals by claiming that they are just machines, and 3) Adam Smith whose work was used to justify naked greed and self-interest even if it caused the enslavement and impoverishment of other human beings.
The environmental movement, the animal rights movement and the human rights movements are the modern, progressive antidotes to the destruction wrought by the ideas of these three men, but these movements are being atomized by the power elite in order to divide and conquer them. Unfortunately, at times, the leaders of these movements are letting themselves be manipulated by deliberately doing things antithetical to the success of the other movements.
Adam Smith’s work has been grossly perverted by the right in today’s politics – just to read some of his words about the capitalists of his own time reveals that he was rightly suspicious of their influence and motives.
Spot on. Noam Chomsky nails this in his book ‘How the World Works’ which includes pages from here: The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many.
The works contained therein are prior to 2000 but still nonetheless worth reading to discover some of how we got here and why.
Noam Chomsky – Peak Oil and a Changing Climate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQCTTKvNkic&feature=plcp
Absolutely! If you want to name the real villains of the neo-liberal piece think Hayek, Friedman, and their ‘love that dare not speak its name’ -Ayn Rand.
Total mindblow advanced by American architect-planner Peter Calthorpe and Colombia’s former Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa, the idea caught the imagination of an international forum of city experts and advisers meeting at the Rockefeller Foundation’s conference center in early August.
BELLAGIO, Italy – Imagine cities built for billions of people without a single freeway. No “flyovers.” No elevated roads or canyon-like depressed super-roads.
A ‘Freeway-Free’ Future for World Cities?
”
http://citiwire.net/columns/a-freeway-free-future-for-world-cities/
”
(preparing for the stars)
We generally refer to right wing climate science denialism. The reality is, we’re all engaged in some form and degree of denial. Scientists who predict calamity by 2050, not 2020. The media that reports extreme weather without mentioning climate change. The President who doesn’t talk about climate change. The home buyer who buys a home in the Southwest expecting it to be a good 30 year investment. The poll respondent, who responds positively to every environmental concern, but then goes about their lives as usual. These are all forms of denial. Denial permeates every aspect of our response (or lack thereof) to climate change.
Most of the people I know here in the UK are either in denial or ignorance. Most of them have never had to struggle for anything really important in their lives – sure they’ve studied for exams or worked to build up a business, but they’ve always had unquestioned access to necessities such as clean water and sanitation, food (enough to become obese), free education for the kids, free healthcare, no existential threats such as wars.Many are comfortably off in big houses with big cars. To many of them the prospects of all this suddenly becoming untenable appears unreal, and they deny it is a possibility. They are perhaps the first generation to have unquestioned comfort and apparent security, and they understandably perhaps have become detached from the reality that their prosperity is highly dependent upon a stable biophysical environment – instead they obsess endlessly about the economy. They have become radically disconnected from nature – some kids don’t even know where their food comes from.
When things turn nasty they will possibly vote for politicians who tell them this is all being taken away on a false premise, but by then the unfolding reality may make denial a difficult sell. I cling to the hope that they will instead elect to move forwards into a different better future.
It’s a manifestation of our denial of death. Anthropogenic climate destabilisation is mega-death, the death of our civilization, a second, final death, for all our achievements and their creators, and species death, for ourselves and most of the higher animals. It’s a bit too challenging, really. Better to close your eyes and wish it away.
It’s the truth, the truth that our entire lifestyle is unsustainable, that we are the problem, that everything which we value is contributing to the cause… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI
Everything material that we value. Our materialism is killing us, and the hyper-materialism of the rich in particular. Reduce our material consumption and the frenetic labour required to slake it, and we’ll have world enough and time to cultivate our spiritual, moral and intellectual gardens.
I am very concerned that climate change will not even be mentioned in the upcoming presidential debates, so concerned that I left two comments on the PBS Newshour stories that announced the selection of Jim Lehrer to moderate the first debate. The topic is supposed to be “domestic policy”. Neither of my comments made it through moderation.
My points:
- that any discussion of energy or economic policy must include climate change since energy use drives climate change and economic policy must include the costs for adaptation or, as in the case of the drought of 2012, dealing with the effects.
- that Jim Lehrer’s stated vision of his role as “helping the candidates” ignores the fact that his background is in PUBLIC broadcasting and that he should view his role as helping the PUBLIC.
I am not anticipating that these debates will provide any hope at all.
If the climate is brought up then someone might mention the projected uv ray situation by 2035. certainly the candidates might be ably to suggest a grand party to celebrate.
I don’t remember whether NASA or NOAA but the
projected rise in uv ray reaching through the atmosphere…
Certainly a grand party to celebrate our achievement will be in order.
Held underground or at night.
Hi Mulga,
maybe sad but true.
How do we solve climate change?
A giant says, “I lowered the cost of solar.”
A flea says, “I installed a solar panel.”
That’s the difference between solving the problem and company greenwashing.
Now, how do WE solve climate change? WE take on the odds and go directly toward the goal.
Of course we’re nuts, we’re suicidal to take on the multinationals. We’re doing the act of integrity anyway. If we succeed at first, and if the multinationals then steal our ideas as is their nature, then we’ve still managed to take one good damaging cut at the fossil fuel dragon before the dragon eats us.
Of course, others of us might try to improve the odds of our success. Even tiny acts of selfless caring in the face of grave danger would be morally correct actions.
I believe that people have real human courage in them. It just takes a while to flower sometimes.
With the climate change induced drought alone costing America at least 50 billion, the candidates had better address climate change… It would be entirely irresponsible not to.
I hope that someone has the time, energy, information, and ability to refute George Will:
(But here’s a hint, George, sometimes doom takes time. The Earth is a very large set of very large complex systems that interact in unpredictable ways.)
George F. Will
Why doom has not materialized
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-why-doom-has-not-materialized/2012/08/17/fcf89ed6-e7fb-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html
Most commenters at the WaPO website have left very negative appraisals of the piece by Will. Will’s strawman arguments concerning the Club of Rome study didn’t get much traction.
Refuting George Will’s column shouldn’t actually require much time, energy, or (new) information. He repeats Lomborg’s pooh-poohing of recycling in this ridiculous column, but George clearly supports recycling: his entire piece of trash is garbage he’s said before. It’s irrelevant, idiotic, but most of all: it’s LAZY. That’s why refuting it should be an easy task for someone like our host, Joe Romm. Mr. Will says NOTHING new, nothing he hasn’t said before.
It’s the old ‘wrestling with pigs’ analogy. Don’t give the bounder the oxygen of recognition. Pointing out that he is an ignoramus and misrepresenter just makes him snicker into his Bollinger.
It’s essentially the same argument made by Matt Ridley in a recent article in Wired magazine: Debunking some failed past predictions to imply that any warning has to be bogus.
Morally shabby and intellectually pathetic. Yet Ridley, Lomborg et al strut and fret as if they are some sort of sages,and, in comparison to the Dunning-Kruger rabble they inspire, or to the Rightwing belligerati of the denialosphere, they almost are.
Climate State has now a Google+ page https://plus.google.com/b/103603775757824117841/103603775757824117841/posts
Okla. heat, drought allow deadly amoeba to thrive -
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Okla-heat-drought-allow-deadly-amoeba-to-thrive-3798339.php
New role for drones – wildlife, eco conservation http://www.newsday.com/news/world/new-role-for-drones-wildlife-eco-conservation-1.3913509
ntelligent people have ‘unnatural’ preferences and values that are novel in human evolution February 24, 2010 More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news186236813.html#jCp
‘sexual exclusivity’ eh? In that case Limbaugh, Will, and the droogs at ‘The Australian’ must be kept pretty busy. What an unfortunate thought!
Burning at the beach: Greeks watch wildfire approach
http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/18/13351933-burning-at-the-beach-greeks-watch-wildfire-approach?lite
The MSM will never tell the public the truth about AGW until the terror can no longer be hidden or denied. They are protecting their profits. Consumer based companies want their products sold- & the power of fossil fuel companies can tell the NYT and all the major media outlets what to say.
If the MSM had any moral integrity or ethics left, they would do a 3 part interview in prime time news with a noted climate scientist. The question is when will that point be reached?
The American public remains in a dazed world of mental inertia on the subject of climate change in their lives. Americans will need to begin to give up much of their high carbon footprint lifestyles starting now- to even keep C02 at the level it is at today-will they agree to this willingly?
By 2030 the world will begin to into a fall into a new dark age of chaos. How will Americans respond? They will unlikely not be able to continue in their lives as they have in the past. The change will likely be abrupt and brutal.
In the heartland which has been dried to epic proportions, the vast majority of farmers believe its an ‘Act of God’- and local officials refuse to mention ‘climate Change’. Are we really making progress even with the disasters we have seen in this country over the last years?
Obviously we are a long way before the Public understands the threats we face and demand policy change. Americans still do not understand the science of climate change- and have no idea about the dire future ahead for them and their progeny.
“..the world will begin to into a fall into a new dark age of chaos”
Isn’t that already in progress? Arab spring, loss of freedom of speech, more violence against minorities, more crime, more extreme weather anomalies, less distribution of wealth, corruption etc etc.
Climate change will exacerbate all this and at one point (maybe by 2030) anarchy and collapse.
We are all just 7 meals away from anarchy according to the anthropologists. We have moved a lot closer to that possibility in the last 3 years. For most people what they want is a return to the good old days, high mortgage values and cheap gas and a hyper growing economy. All the things we need to learn to live without, and can with a little extra effort.
Extreme metrics
Filed under: Climate impacts Climate Science statistics — gavin @ 18 August 2012
There has been a lot of discussion related to the Hansen et al (2012, PNAS) paper and the accompanying op-ed in the Washington Post last week. But in this post, I’ll try and make the case that most of the discussion has not related to the actual analysis described in the paper, but rather to proxy arguments for what people think is ‘important’. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/extreme-metrics/
Idaho town emptied as state’s worst wildfire nears http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/19/13362938-idaho-town-emptied-as-states-worst-wildfire-nears?lite
We need to act now.
Of course the corporate-owned “mainstream” media won’t report on the reality of global warming.
To do so might discourage shopping.
Those who worry about the press, and how they handle political or sensitive topics need to read this recent commentary by James Fallows in The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/print/2012/08/truth-lies-politics-and-the-press-in-three-acts/261297/
James Fallows is one of the good guys and always has been. The article mentions his book Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. Although published in 1996, it looks like a worthwhile read.
Climate Change 101 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Jxs7lR8ZI&list=PL1E1DC65522CE3C78&index=1&feature=plpp_video
Rob Painting has an excellent article about differences in sea level, sea level rise, and especially what causes these differences. It’s over at Skeptical Science
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Sea-Level-Isnt-Level-This-Elastic-Earth.html