by Matthias Bell, RMI, and Dylan Sullivan of NRDC, cross-posted from the Rocky Mountain Institute

This is part one in a three part series published at RMI on turbocharging energy efficiency programs.

The utilities in Ohio will tell you that they’re nothing like the energy efficiency leaders in California, Oregon, Vermont, or Massachusetts. Their systems are different and so are the regulations they must follow. But none of that has prevented them from investing in energy efficiency with their customers.

In 2008, recognizing that energy efficiency is the cheapest way to meet energy needs, Ohio’s Legislature passed a law that requires electric utilities to help their customers save energy. Since then, American Electric Power, Duke Energy, and Dayton Power and Light have stepped up those efforts and saved almost twice the amount of energy required by law (.3% and .5% of load in 2009 and 2010, respectively). AEP went from saving almost no energy in 2005 to saving a cumulative 554,000 MWh from its 2009 and 2010 energy efficiency programs, enough energy to power 55,000 Ohio homes for one year.

Utilities in Ohio aren’t the only ones making these changes. They’re part of a national trend. From 2007 to 2010, electric utility efficiency program budgets have gone from $2.7 billion to $5.4 billion. In other words, utilities have doubled the amount they are spending on efficiency in just the past three years. These numbers will only continue to rise. By 2020, program budgets are expected to reach $10.9 billion.

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by Toby Webb, cross-posted from the Smarter Business blog

US environmental NGOs, along with other, more globally minded ‘green’ and conservation-minded NGOs, have been poorly led in recent years.

They’ve blown a series of chances to help businesses change using a nuanced approach. Their approach been too cut and dried, too ‘with you not against you’ in ideology. It was never as simple as that.

That’s fairly clear to most people I know. I’m condensing quite a few other opinions here.

Now a new generation of green group leaders is emerging.

This new set of leaders may have learned from Greenpeace’s brilliant ‘stick and carrot’ approach that has proven so effective with business.

That’s if this New York Times article is correct:

“Roger Ballentine, a climate adviser to the Clinton White House who now advises businesses on green strategies, suggests that the movement has grown impatient with coaxing incremental change by engaging with policy makers and corporations.

The old way was the Sierra Club putting its seal on “green” Clorox products; the new way is suggested by a Greenpeace Internet campaign that wrung a promise from Facebook last week to use less coal for its data centers.

“The failure to address climate is catastrophic, and young people are justifiably outraged,” Mr. Ballentine said, pointing to the next generation in the movement. “What we have now is an antagonized grass roots calling for a radicalized approach.”

This could mean that in 2012 the big, well-funded US green NGOs may begin to copy Greenpeace’s tactics.
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The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. It boils down the research on the psychological research on misinformation into a short, simple summary.

This is part two of a five-part series cross-posted from Skeptical Science.

To debunk a myth, you often have to mention it — otherwise, how will people know what you’re talking about? However, this makes people more familiar with the myth and hence more likely to accept it as true. Does this mean debunking a myth might actually reinforce it in people’s minds?

To test for this backfire effect, people were shown a flyer that debunked common myths about flu vaccines.¹ Afterwards, they were asked to separate the myths from the facts. When asked immediately after reading the flyer, people successfully identified the myths. However, when queried 30 minutes after reading the flyer, some people actually scored worse after reading the flyer. The debunking reinforced the myths.

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by Rolf Schuttenhelm, cross-posted from Bits of Science

The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss — which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation — are perhaps most shocking.

When, however, you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level, the ecosystem level, you get a better understanding of what is one of the major drivers of that biodiversity loss: forced migrations. And even here, the numbers may be larger than one would expect, as a new assessment by NASA and Caltech published in the journal Climatic Change shows that by 2100 some 40 percent of “major ecological community types” – that is biomes like forest, grassland, tundra – will have switched to a different such state.

According to the same study most of the land on Earth that is not currently desert or under an icecap will undergo at least a 30 percent change in vegetation cover.

Ecological damage is the real climate problem

Based on IPCC temperature projections for 2100 [which are probably on the conservative side] of 2-4 degrees Celsius warming scientists of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology ran special computer models to calculate the most probable ecosystem responses across the planet. This average temperature rise is of similar magnitude to the warming that occurred between the Last Glacial Maximum and the onset of the (milder) Holocene – with the big exception that the current warming is happening about 100 times faster – and for ecology that makes a huge difference, the authors stress.

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The Debunking Handbook is a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. Although there is a great deal of psychological research on misinformation, unfortunately there is no summary of the literature that offers practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. This Handbook boils down the research into a short, simple summary, intended as a guide for communicators in all areas (not just climate) who encounter misinformation

This is part one in a five-part series by John Cook originally published at Skeptical Science.

Introduction

Debunking myths is problematic. Unless great care is taken, any effort to debunk misinformation can inadvertently reinforce the very myths one seeks to correct. To avoid these “backfire effects”, an effective debunking requires three major elements. First, the refutation must focus on core facts rather than the myth to avoid the misinformation becoming more familiar. Second, any mention of a myth should be preceded by explicit warnings to notify the reader that the upcoming information is false. Finally, the refutation should include an alternative explanation that accounts for important qualities in the original misinformation.

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by Michael Conathan

This year was a big one for fisheries. If you’re into fishery legislation and important milestones, you already know that it was the 35th anniversary of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that first ejected foreign fishing fleets from the United States’ exclusive economic zone and provided the foundation for how we manage our fisheries. It was also the 15th anniversary of the Sustainable Fisheries Act and the fifth anniversary of passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act, the last two major updates to our fisheries statute.

But there were also many significant developments this year that will benefit our fishing industries and our marine environment for generations to come. Here’s a quick rundown of the top five stories in fishery management from 2011.

1. Ending overfishing in America

By far the biggest story of the year in fisheries management was the successful implementation of annual catch limits in our fisheries. This effectively ended overfishing in America. In March, National Marine Fisheries Service Administrator Eric Schwaab announced that his agency was on track to implement science-based catch limits on all 528 federally managed species of fish, thereby preventing overfishing—the act of catching more fish than science dictates can be sustainably harvested—from occurring in U.S. fisheries.

Of course, fisheries science remains an elusive discipline, and our estimates of fish stock populations are rife with variables. This means that as more data are collected, our perceptions of the health of fish populations may change, and we may realize that what we thought were sustainable harvest levels may have been overly optimistic.

Still, given that fisheries scientists don’t have a crystal ball showing what the future holds for fish populations, operating within limits that reflect the best science we have still gives the United States worldwide bragging rights to say our fisheries are the most sustainably managed on the planet. And that’s no small feat. So whether you’re putting a piece of Alaskan salmon or Atlantic swordfish on your plate, you can end 2011 with the assurance that if it’s U.S.-caught, it’s sustainable.

2. Cracking down on pirate fishing

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by John Farrell, cross-posted from Energy Self Reliant States

Solar grid parity is considered the tipping point for solar power, when installing solar power will cost less than buying electricity from the grid.  It’s also a tipping point in the electricity system, when millions of Americans can choose energy production and self-reliance over dependence on their electric utility.

But this simple concept conceals a great deal of complexity.  And given the stakes of solar grid parity, it’s worth exploring the details.

The Cost of Solar

For starters, what’s the right metric for the cost of solar?  The installed cost for residential solar ($6.40 in 2011), or commercial solar ($5.20) or utility-scale solar ($3.75)?  Even if we pick one of these, it’s difficult to compare apples to apples, because grid electricity is priced in dollars per kilowatt-hour of electricity, not dollars per Watt.

Enter “levelized cost,” or the cost of a solar PV array averaged over a number of years of production.  For example, a 1 kilowatt (kW) solar array installed in Minneapolis for $6.40 per Watt costs $6,400.  Over 25 years, we can expect that system to produce about 30,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh), so the “simple levelized cost” is $6,400 divided by 30,000, or about $0.21 per kWh.

But people usually borrow money, and pay interest, to install solar power.  And there are some maintenance costs over those 25 years.  And we also use a “discount rate” that puts heavier weight on dollars spent or earned today compared to those earned 20 years from now.  A 1 kW solar array that is 80% paid for by borrowing at 5% interest, with maintenance costs of about $65 per year, and discounted at 5% per year will have a levelized cost of around $0.37.

That means that “solar grid parity” for this 1 kW solar array happens if the grid electricity price is  $0.37 per kWh.  But this calculation is location specific.

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Attached to the payroll tax deal was a provision forcing President Obama to decide within 60 days whether or not to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, before its route is even finalized. The deadline runs out on February 21, 2012. The State Department has made it clear it can’t do a proper review of the pipeline, especially considering that TransCanada has agreed to change the pipeline’s pathway in Nebraska but hasn’t even finalized the new route.

With this new and arbitrary deadline, the punditocracy is relitigating the question of whether it should be built. The DC political elite assumed that the pipeline was an inevitability, dismissive or ignorant of the popular opposition to a risky, foreign tar sands pipeline cutting across the center of the nation. Most were blindsided when the State Department announced it needed to review its obviously flawed assessment of the project, and when the state of Nebraska held an emergency legislative session against the pipeline.

With the new rush to approve TransCanada’s tar sands pipeline, let’s review some key facts that should underlie any analysis of the proposed 1700-mile project from Alberta to Texas:

The approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline was tainted by corruption. The federal approval process was run by a contractor for the pipeline company itself. Cardno Entrix was chosen and paid by TransCanada to draft the State Department’s environmental and historical impact statement, manage public hearings, and receive public comment. Big oil’s lobbying group American Petroleum Institute was also involved in drafting the environmental impact statement while running ads in favor of tar sands development. TransCanada, who employed former Hillary Clinton aides as lobbyists, has bullied landowners and moved towards construction without needed approval. In response to a congressional request, the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General has launched an investigation.

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by Russell McLendon, in a Mother Nature Network cross-post

Most people know better than to bring up politics, religion or climatology in polite company. It’s a recipe for arguments, or at least for awkwardness.

But when families get together for big holiday meals … that recipe is often dusted off anyway. And whether it’s your nephew demonizing the Tea Party, your niece deifying Tim Tebow, or your aunt and uncle arguing about polar bears, no one wants squabbling to overshadow gobbling at a holiday feast.

Still, not all taboo topics are the same. Fuzzier issues like politics and religion are often sensitive, since they’re largely matters of opinion and faith. But climate science is a little different, thanks to the “science” part. It’s one thing to bite your tongue while a relative rants about taxes or morality, but what if the conversation turns to coral bleaching or glacier loss? Is it worth risking an argument to set the record straight?

In most cases, probably not. It’s not like your relative is addressing the United Nations, and you might just come off as uptight and self-righteous for trying to squelch dissent. If your uncle had two glasses of wine and wants to grumble about Al Gore, you’re probably better off letting him. Otherwise, you could just end up convincing him even further that environmentalists want to control his life.

But that’s not to say you should never speak up for science at family gatherings. Polite enlightenment is possible; it just requires being knowledgeable and confident without seeming nitpicky or condescending. And even if you can do that, it still depends on your audience, which may have little patience for a science lesson.

If you decide it’s worth the risks, though — maybe your uncle can be open-minded, or you know your cousin will back you up — here’s a quick guide for explaining climate change without raining on everyone’s parade:

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Irreversible does not mean unstoppable: “Why show me this, if I am past all hope?”

Unlike Scrooge, we don’t get a spirit to show us what the future holds if we don’t change our ways.

In the past two years, though, we have gotten the tiniest glimpse of climate gone wild (see “Masters: “The stunning extremes we witnessed [in 2010] gives me concern that our climate is showing the early signs of instability” and A New Record: 14 U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters in 2011).  And we did get dozens of scientific papers warning us of what is to come (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces).

M.I.T. laid out the choice in its 2009 analysis:

Humanity’s Choice (via M.I.T.):  Inaction (“No Policy”) eliminates most of the uncertainty about whether or not future warming will be catastrophic.  Aggressive emissions reductions dramatically improves humanity’s chances.

Yes, it is increasingly unlikely that we will adopt the aggressive but low-net-cost policies needed to stabilize at 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, and then quickly come back to 350 — thanks in large part to the deniers, along with their political pals and media enablers.  But when reporters ask me if it’s “too late,” — or, as one did recently, “have we crossed a tipping point?” — I have to explain that the question doesn’t have a purely scientific answer.

It does seem clear that the most dangerous carbon-cycle feedback — the defrosting permafrost — hasn’t kicked in yet but is likely to with two decades (see “Carbon Time Bomb in the Arctic“).

If humanity gets truly serious about emissions reduction — and by serious I mean “World War II serious” in both scale and urgency — we could go to near-zero global emissions in, say, 2 decades and then quickly go carbon negative.  It wouldn’t be easy, far from it (see “The full global warming solution: How the world can stabilize at 350 to 450 ppm“).  But even in the 2020s it would be vastly cheaper and preferable to the alternative (see Scientists find “net present value of climate change impacts” of $1240 TRILLION on current emissions path, making mitigation to under 450 ppm a must).

Delay is very risky and expensive.  In releasing its 2009 Energy Outloook, the International Energy Agency explained, “we need to act urgently and now. Every year of delay adds an extra USD 500 billion to the investment needed between 2010 and 2030 in the energy sector”. In releasing its 2011 Energy Outloook, the IEA said “On planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change” and “we are on an even more dangerous track to an increase of 6°C [11°F].” They concluded:

Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

This is all by way of introduction to a holiday rerun repost. Three years ago I wrote about a NOAA led paper, which found:

…the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop…. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450-600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise.

And we know that large parts of the currently habited and arable land are at risk of turning into Dust Bowls, gravely threatening global food security.

We most certainly do not want to significantly exceed 450 ppm for any length of time, as Dust-Bowlification isn’t the only impact that is irreversible:

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A cyber-penny for your thoughts.

This winter has been unusually warm, crippling ski resorts, ruining holiday traditions, and dashing hopes of a white Christmas across the northern hemisphere. While the billions of tons of greenhouse pollution in our atmosphere sometimes encourage freak snowstorms, the primary effect of global warming on winter is, well, warmer temperatures — making white Christmases less likely. Temperature increases in some regions were off the charts in November, with northern Norway about 10°F warmer than average. In Finland, snow has been replaced by rain, killing World Cup and European Cup ski races, hurting retail sales, and adding to the gloom people feel from the long winter dark. This “black Christmas” shows the “footprint of global warming“:

Helsinki is experiencing uncharacteristically mild December temperatures, and only light dustings of snow have come and gone. “At the beginning of December it was on average six degrees warmer than is usual for this time of year,” meteorologist Pauli Jokinen told AFP. He said the snow’s no-show in the south of the country this year was partly due to natural variations, but also a footprint of global warming. “You can’t put a single season down to climate change, but we have seen that climate change has lifted the baseline temperatures,” he explained.

In Indiana, golf courses are still open while ski resorts remain shuttered. From the Pyrenees to the Balkans, ski resorts in the Alps have not only failed to receive natural snow, it’s been too warm to make any. “Virginia ski resorts are watching their assets melt away.” The December season has been a wash for the $1 billion New Hampshire ski resort industry. “Skiing is all right, if you consider the rain and everything,” one Massachusetts skier said of resorts’ efforts to make snow amid spring-like weather.

“Most Canadians will not wake up to a white Christmas on December 25 for the first time since Canada’s weather office began recording snowfalls in 1955,” AFP reports.

Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips told AFP “he has never seen so little snowpack in Canada’s cities.”

Because of global warming pollution from burning fossil fuels, winters are generally becoming milder, wetter, and starting later, making the promise of a white Christmas more of a dream.

U.N. Foundation President Tim Wirth told Climate Wire this week that President Obama has a “last window of opportunity” to avert catastrophic climate change — assuming he gets reelected:

“I don’t know who and where the climate leadership in the administration is. It doesn’t exist. There is no resolve in the Obama administration to do anything, and I think they look at Congress and say, ‘We can’t do anything, so why break our pick now?’” Wirth said.

Hey, if the White House waits long enough, all the ice will melt and they won’t need a pick!

He argued that the administration and environmental groups alike must “spend the year 2012 setting the table for the next four years.” Dismissing the possibility of a Republican win in November, Wirth called a second Obama administration term “the last window of opportunity” to enact policies that can avert a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

“It’s the last chance we have to get anything approaching 2 degrees Centigrade,” he said. “If we don’t do it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”

Obama’s reelection is only at 51.9% on Intrade, so  I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of him losing at all, particularly given how poor the White House had been at messaging on most issues.

It’s also quite interesting that Wirth takes a similar view to Climate Progress on Durban (see “2C or not 2C: That Is the Question About the Durban Deal” and various responses in the comments).  The fault lies not in the negotiators, but in the instructions they had from those in charge:

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Monitoring hearings can be pretty dry. Unless, of course, you’re monitoring the House Committee on Natural Resources. The Public Lands Team at the Center for American Progress just released a video highlighting this year’s top oddest and dirtiest moments committee:

From the beginning of the 112th Congress it was suspected that Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) would lead the committee on an “oil above all” mission, and that proved to be the case—20 out of 65 oversight hearings were held on how to do more oil and gas drilling, while just four were held on spurring renewable energy development. Hearings weren’t the only way Republicans attempted to prioritize the bottom line of their corporate contributors over the public lands that belong to all Americans—indeed, they went so far as to push extreme measures to mine uranium next to the Grand Canyon and deny the existence of an entire industry of green jobs, both of which are shown in this video.

The House of Representatives in the 112th Congress as a whole has the dubious distinction of being “the most anti-environment House in the history of Congress,” averaging more than one anti-environmental vote for every day the House was in session in 2011. Much of that legislation started in the House Committee on Natural Resources, where CAPAF’s Public Lands Project spent the year highlighting mistruths about oil and gas subsidies, exposing nefarious motivations for mining and drilling our public lands, and standing up for policies that protect the lands that belong to all of us.

An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely the worst to hit those waters in a decade, a government official said Thursday, as slicks from the Royal Dutch Shell PLC spill approached the country’s southern shoreline.

The slick from Shell’s Bonga field has affected 115 miles (185 kilometers) of ocean near Nigeria’s coast, Peter Idabor, who leads the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, told The Associated Press. Idabor said the slick continued to move toward the shore Thursday night, putting at risk birds, fish and other wildlife in the area.

Shell, the major oil producer in Nigeria, said late Thursday the spill came from a “flexible export line” connecting the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The company published photographs of the spill, showing a telltale rainbow sheen in the ocean, but said it believes that about 50 percent of the leaked oil has already evaporated.

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A 5-kW solar system in Roxbury, VT. Photo: Solar Specialists

Vermont is known for its lush Green Mountains, idyllic farm landscapes, and progressive politics. What many people may not realize is that Vermont has a pretty active secessionist movement too.

Vermont isn’t likely to secede from the U.S. But it is undertaking an ambitious renewable energy program that could at least put it on a path toward “energy secession” — developing a road map for procuring 90% of its heat, electricity and fuels from renewables by 2050.

Under Vermont’s new governor, Peter Shumlin, regulators are developing the state’s first comprehensive energy plan in over a decade. And this one is certainly forward-looking.

Vermont currently gets about 25% of its electricity from renewables — mostly biomass and hydro. But officials want to diversify technologies, address under-served markets like heat and fuels, and dramatically improve efficiency in all sectors. The state released its final comprehensive plan for 2011 last week.

Vermont has already embraced a modest transition to renewables, implementing a feed-in tariff in 2009 and developing a renewable energy standard (heat and electricity) of 20% by 2017. This latest plan, which just went through an extensive public commenting period, takes these efforts to the next level.

After Vermont received a devastating surprise pummeling from Hurricane Irene in August, state planners have taken the experience to heart, using it as one of the central drivers in the state’s new energy plan.

In the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, the need to align local, regional, and state policies across agencies and departments to support thoughtful and resilient growth in our downtowns and villages has never been more acute. The Agency of Commerce and Community Development, with the support of the Climate Cabinet, will complete a review of the state’s designation programs in 2012.

Prior to Tropical Storm Irene, the state had already set a goal of 5% reduction in energy usage across state government. Now that the state faces significant infrastructure repair and rebuilding, energy usage in our state buildings is even more central to our planning. The CEP recommends that the state sharpen its focus on efficient buildings while strategically deploying renewable energy systems.

…We recommend the midcentury goal while recognizing that we must pursue our goals responsibly, ensuring overall energy costs for our businesses and residents remain regionally competitive. But we must also act boldly to protect our environment and our economic security.

Kudos to Vermont for considering such a bold vision for the future and taking a real step toward independence.

House Speaker John Boehner conceded to the inevitable and agreed to approve the Senate compromise that extends the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance two months.

That bill also includes, at the GOP’s insistence, a requirement that Obama make a decision within 60 days on the tar sands pipeline, which is likely fatal to Keystone XL (see “GOP Threaten to Harm the Economy If Obama Won’t Embrace Tar Sands Pipeline“).

Jeremy Symons of National Wildlife Federation has the latest, including quotes from Bill McKibben of 350.org, Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska:

So what does this mean for the pipeline?  Speaker Boehner is trying to satisfy Big Oil’s lobbyists and some of the GOP’s top corporate donors by forcing the president to make a hasty decision, but it will backfire.   I am confident that President Obama will stand up to big oil and reject this dangerous and unnecessary pipeline because it is the right thing to do, and that the American public will support him.  Americans understand that it is wrong to play political games and strip families of our right to protect our land and our clean water from foreign oil companies, because you can’t drink oil.

I asked  Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska and Bill McKibben of 350.org, two of the leading fighters to stop this pipeline,  for their reaction today as well. Here is what they wrote me:

Bill McKibben:  ”The administration’s promise to deny this permit, if fulfilled, will be one of the rare pieces of good news for the climate in a year which saw America shatter all records for billion-dollar weather disasters. The president campaigned hard in 2008 on trying to slow the climate crisis, and this would be a strong sign he meant what he said.”

Jane Kleeb: “The pipeline is unnecessary and a scam that would export the oil while burdening our families with all the risks.”

Precisely.

JR:  There’s been a lot of confusion this year on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases (see Media Misleads On Flawed Climate Sensitivity Study: Avoiding “Drastic Changes Over Land” Requires Emissions Cuts ASAP).  Given all the media attention given to one (flawed) study, a little attention to other studies seems worthwhile.

by Rolf Schuttenhelm, reposted from Bits of Science

An international research group led by Gothenburg University looked at the impact of organic aerosol feedbacks on climate sensitivity

It serves to show individual climate sensitivity studies are never conclusive but add up bits of fresh understanding to an already enormous pile of data and knowledge.

Right in the middle of that pile is the IPCC. Should the entire pile shift or change shape – rest assured, then the official IPCC climate sensitivity range [now around 3 degrees Celsius for a doubling of atmospheric CO2] will do the same in their 2013 climate report.

The new Swedish climate sensitivity research has just been published (PDF) in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, the open-access journal of the European Geosciences Union.

The authors argue that climate sensitivity could be ‘greater than previously believed’ because in the initial phases of the current CO2-induced warming plant life has emitted larger amounts of precursor gases that lead to the formation of reflective or blocking* secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in the atmosphere, thereby acting as a negative climate feedback, and masking part of the ‘warming’ that’s occurring underneath.

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by Jill Fitzsimmons, cross-posted from Media Matters

As winter descends, Fox is keeping with its annual tradition of using snowstorms and cold temperatures to mock global warming.

The suggestion that local winter weather somehow disproves global, long-term warming trends is a recurring theme at Fox, despite its faulty logic. During the hot summer months, Fox News’ silence on global warming is deafening. But like clockwork, when the snow starts to accumulate so does Fox’s climate coverage.

Here are some of the highlights from recent years:

These attempts to downplay the threat of global warming should come as no surprise coming from Fox, which routinely ignores evidence of climate change, but goes out of its way to spread misinformation and hype “scandals” in an attempt to cast doubt on the scientific consensus.

But as meteorologist Jeff Masters explained, “heavy snowstorms are not inconsistent with a warming planet. In fact, as the Earth gets warmer and more moisture gets absorbed into the atmosphere, we are steadily loading the dice in favor of more extreme storms in all seasons.”

A 2009 report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program stated that “strong cold season storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent” in the Northeast and upper Midwest as a result of climate change.

So for all of Fox’s misguided sarcasm, it’s likely that some big snowstorms in the U.S. are, in part, a symptom of a changing climate.

– Jill Fitzsimmons is a researcher with Media Matters for America, where this piece was originally published.

Related Post:

• An amazing, though clearly little-known, scientific fact: We get more snow storms in warm years!

What an odd year. While businesses around the world were making record level investments in renewables and efficiency, a growing number of conservative politicians and members of the American media punditry — lead by the outrageously ignorant “reporting” by Fox News — have been foolishly projecting (even cheering on) the demise of the sector.

Aside from the mind-boggling disparity between the science and politics of climate change, I’ve never seen such a large gap between perception and what’s actually happening on the ground.

Of course, we can’t ignore the enormous challenges — from cheap natural gas to relentless competition in manufacturing — that will lead to the death of many of the companies we know today. That is part of the natural (and sometimes violent) shake-out we can expect to see in years to come.

However, in order to add to our “climate solutions menu” on this site and cut through some of the recent political attacks, we’ve added more stories on the positive trends in clean energy. Here are some of our favorites from the last year (with some of our best clean energy charts of the year):

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