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by Scott A. Mandia in a repost

Dear Colleagues,

Climate researchers are in need of immediate legal assistance to prevent their private correspondence from being exposed to Chris Horner and the American Tradition Institute who are using Freedom of Information (FOI) to harass researchers.   (For context please see: http://wapo.st/pQg0JC and http://wapo.st/oiua7V.)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recently stated: “the sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists.” The complete AAAS statement is available at http://bit.ly/p04sIq

Many scientists do not enjoy the institutional support necessary to fight attacks from well-funded science-denying groups.  We need to help scientists to defend themselves.   If ATI succeeds in this case, it would set a terrible precedent for scientists at public institutions across the country. But if they are turned back here, it will send a clear message to climate deniers that scientists are willing to stand up to them and fight for their rights.

A donation button has been set up at http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/donation/.  So far we have collected almost $2000 of the $10,000 needed to file the legal papers.

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The morning after the GOP debate, the nation and the world woke up to the reality that an unabashed climate science denier could be the next president of the United States.  The UK’s Guardian warns its readers of Rick Perry:

The world needs to prepare for a climate sceptic defeating Obama

A year or so ago, the very idea that the most powerful person on the planet could, within just a couple of years, be someone who refuses to accept the science that underpins our knowledge of anthropogenic climate change was almost laughable.

They discuss Gov. Rick Perry’s debate performance and conclude:

Sadly, it now appears that Obama’s brief window for action is over and he is unlikely to ever regain the political capital he needs to implement any serious climate policies. But, most alarming of all, the whole world – not just the US – needs to start seriously preparing for the very real possibility that a staunch climate sceptic could, within 16 months, have his cowboy boots under the desk in the Oval Office.

Perry is indeed a hard-core climate science denier and a Tea Party extremist.  It is hard to know how bad the Texas climate would have to get before he would concede that climate scientists were right:

This year’s scorching Texas summer heat, in a dubious honor, broke a national record once held by Oklahoma that had stood since the Dust Bowl changed the face of the country in the 1930s.

The Texas months of June through August were the hottest three months ever recorded in the history of the United States…..

“It has been scary hot from one end of Texas to the other,” [state climatologist John] Nielson-Gammon said….  “The dryer it is, the hotter the ground gets during the summer, and it becomes a cycle that feeds on itself….”

The 12 months ending on August 31 were the driest 12 months in Texas history.

Heck, it’s hard to know how bad the climate would have to get before Perry would even take even the most basic adaptation measures, like, say, adequately funding firefighters, rather than, so, just praying for rain.

Climate Progress has noted that the Texas Drought Now Far, Far Worse Than When Gov. Rick Perry Issued his April Proclamation Calling on All Texans to Pray for Rain.  And the month after adopting that futile adaptation strategy, Perry signed a budget that devastated the state’s ability to fight fires:

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Some readers have told me they wanted a weekly “Best of Climate Progress.” Apparently they don’t have time to check out the site every day.  Hard to believe but true!

So I’m starting a new feature, and if it is popular, I will continue it.  Please feel free to add links to stories or blog posts from the week that you think deserve attention.

So much happened this week from reaction to Obama’s caving on the ozone rule to amazing climate extremes to the emergence of anti-science extremist Rick Perry as the GOP front runner.  The biggest story may be the redoubled attacks attacks on clean energy by the right wing just as  the Chinese are  putting in place policies to achieve permanent supremacy in what will almost certainly be the biggest high-wage job creating sector of the next few decades.

So the post of the week is “Top 10 Reasons Why Clean Energy Jobs Are Vital to Our Economy.”

Here is  the week in review as told in the most popular Climate Progress posts:

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AFP:  The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start of satellite observations in 1972, German researchers announced on Saturday….

“This is a new historic minimum,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen….

The Arctic death spiral continues.  We are reaching the climax of the Arctic sea ice melt season.  I asked Neven of the must-read Arctic Sea Ice Blog to set the scene for the finale (with some cool animations):

– by Neven of Arctic Sea Ice Blog

The incredible has happened. In the past week the 2011 melting season has started to surpass record year 2007. First, the good people from the Polar Science Center informed us of the fact that their PIOMAS model is showing a new sea ice volume record (as discussed here on Climate Progress).  A day later a new all-time low on the Cryosphere Today sea ice area graph was reached. And two days after that the same thing happened on the University of Bremen sea ice extent chart.  See figure above.

In a sense this isn’t so incredible, as we have been well aware that this could happen from the start of the melting season. The winter maximum and of course sea ice volume were both relatively low. But what does make it incredible, is the way that freak melting season 2007 has been equaled and even surpassed in some data sets.

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NY Times:  “Since 1990, more than 110 million gallons of mostly crude and petroleum products have spilled from the nation’s mainland pipeline network” [see figure, click to enlarge].

by Bill McKibben, in a DailyKos repost