Revkin quickly makes fool of Hoyt with dreadful front-page story

UPDATE:  With his latest story, one-time NYT science reporter Andrew Revkin embarks on a new career as drama critic — while utterly mocking Hoyt’s analysis.  I’ll discuss it at the end.

If you think the NY Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, doesn’t have the whole story, doesn’t simply get a free pass from writing a balanced story, you should email him at public@nytimes.com.

One thing is clear from the story known as ClimateGate — the anti-science ideologues are much better at “Working the Refs“ than the climate science realists.

On his blog, DotEarth, NYT climate reporter Andy Revkin has started turning reader comments into primary text.  Okay.  Here’s our own Ken Levenson from a comment on today’s CP post, British PM attacks “anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics” while UK Conservatives reaffirm climate science and need for “desperately urgent” Copenhagen deal:

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will early next week, possibly as soon as Monday, officially declare carbon dioxide a public danger, a trigger that could mean regulation for emitters across the economy, according to several people close to the matter.

Such an “endangerment” decision is necessary for the EPA to move ahead early next year with new emission standards for cars. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said it could also mean large emitters such as power stations, cement kilns, crude-oil refineries and chemical plants would have to curb their greenhouse gas output.

The announcement would also give President Barack Obama and his climate envoy negotiating leverage at a global climate summit starting next week in Copenhagen, Denmark and increase pressure on Congress to pass a climate bill that would modify the price of polluting.

Science and the law drive policy in this Administration, unlike the previous one.

It was, after all, back on April 2, 2007, that the U.S. Supreme Court determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were pollutants and that the EPA would have to regulate them if they were found to endanger public health and welfare — see EPA finds carbon pollution a serious danger to Americans’ health and welfare requiring regulation.  For more background, see New EPA rule will require use of best technologies to reduce greenhouse gases from large facilities when “constructed or significantly modified” “” small businesses and farms exempt.

The WSJ is reporting one change from the original EPA proposal:

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Most CP readers know about the 2°C warming limit, but many don’t appreciate its full implications. This short essay by two of the analysts who completed the first comprehensive analysis of that limit back in 1989 elaborates on the most important of these implications.  Author bios and all references are at the end.  Koomey has been a friend and colleague for more than a decade and a half.  The figure comes from MetroNaturel.

Why two degrees really matters

Jonathan G. Koomey and Florentin Krause[i]

When the countries of the world meet for climate negotiations in Copenhagen this month, they will discuss how to prevent global temperatures from increasing more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. This warming limit, accepted in principle by the leaders of the G8 countries in July,[ii] is more than just a number””it represents a way to think about the climate problem that can help us develop and evaluate options for solving it.

The current trajectory for greenhouse gas emissions would move the Earth by the middle of this century well outside the temperature range in which humanity evolved, marked by the 2-degree limit. This trend increases substantially the risk of dangerous, irreversible, and, perhaps, catastrophic changes in the global life support systems upon which we all depend.[iii] As the White House Science Advisor John Holdren aptly puts it, we’re “driving in a car with bad brakes towards a cliff in the fog.”[iv] The 2-degree limit is like a road sign warning us to avoid the cliff ahead.

Defining a warming limit implies a greenhouse gas budget, which is an upper limit to our cumulative emissions over the next 50 to 100 years. Such a budget encapsulates our scientific understanding of how emissions interact with the Earth’s climate and affect global temperatures. Some of the most significant greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, stay in the atmosphere for many decades,[v] which is why the budget is defined over the long term.

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In October, Brazil’s President announced, “I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 percent; in other words, we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide gas.”

Now, a new article in the December 4 issue of Science, “The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon,” (subs. req’d, abstract below), explains just how modest is the funding needed to beat that goal — “$7 to $18 billion beyond Brazil’s current budget outlays.”  And that could mean “the end of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which could result in a 2 to 5% reduction in global carbon emissions.”

As the news release from the Woods Hole Research Center explains, Brazil has already made significant reductions in deforestation in that last few years:

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Right-Wing pollster Scott Rasmussen baselessly accuses climate scientists of “Data Falsification”

The right-wing swiftboating campaign against climate scientists dubbed “Climategate” by its perpetrators is becoming frighteningly unhinged, accusing climate researchers of Hitlerian fascism for fighting against corruption of science by oil-funded ideologues. On Wednesday, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the top Republican on the House global warming committee, claimed these scientists were engaging in “scientific fascism.” After Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) denounced his egregious attack, Sensenbrenner defined “scientific fascism” of “intimidation in the scientific community of people who wish to be contrary what the convention wisdom is”:

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Miliband: “The approach of the climate saboteurs is to misuse data and mislead people.”

“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act….”

So the British PM joins the leaders of Australia and this country in condemning the anti-science disinformers (see Obama takes on the anti-scientific delayers, while Australia’s Rudd slams the “deniers” and the “gaggle” of “conspiracy theorists” opposing climate action).  The above cartoon appeared in the UK’s Guardian with the headline “Brown attacks ‘flat-earth’ climate change sceptics.”

And yes, I’m glad Brown picked up the phrase “anti-science” — it’s better and clearer than “denier” [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)"].  Who knows, maybe he reads Climate Progress!

Ed Miliband, Brown’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change — a position Brown created (and if climate change doesn’t need an SOS, what does?) — joined in the condemnation:

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