The Global Warming Thread

[Defiant]

INTERNATIONAL – Well over 500 climatologists, geologists and various scientific experts congregated in Paris for a special summit last week, entirely devoted to debating the existence of Donald Trump, the alleged 45th President of the United States. Even though the political phenomenon has featured more than prominently in the media over the last few years, and according to numerous sources at one point could even be ‘observed’ in Europe, many prestigious specialists remain skeptical with regard to the man’s very existence.

Climatologists deny existence Donald Trump

[LordMortis]

Mike Pence: "For some reason, this issue of climate change has emerged as a paramount issue for the left..."

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/870615261409189888

Pence's Aw-Shucksism is among his most revolting features. To him it's just common sense that climate change is no big deal.

OO keeps informing that government is moving right so the center is moving right centrist liberals are really centrist conservatives. I think the playing field is changing and we left and right don't describe it any more. I find it hard to believe that anyone who denies climate change or now have softened their blow to denying man made climate change and its seriousness could ever be considered centrist. To me that is indicative of the center moving left. As is the stance of health care, marijuana, homosexuality, and hosts of other things.

Of course what blows my mind is that (my perception is) the center is moving left while republican hostage taking tighten controls.

[Fitzy]

Of course what blows my mind is that (my perception is) the center is moving left while republican hostage taking tighten controls.

I like your perception. Do you have a newsletter?

[Paingod]

The idea of Republicans trying to push Climate Change into becoming a fucking partisan issue is so revolting to me that it brings me to a point of rage.

I swear these motherfuckers would stand in the ballroom of the Titanic and insist that nothing was wrong with it and everyone should keep ordering champagne right until water filled their lungs. Up to that point, it would all be fake news and Democratic propaganda designed to make them give up the window seats.

What was that noise? Probably another Democrat jumping up and down about some kind of asinine social injustice. More shrimp!
Why is the deck listing? Must be those stupid Democrats, all running to the side of the boat. Another round for everyone!
Why is everyone screaming? I'm sure it's some kind of plot to get our tables. Turn the music up!
Where did this water come from? Some moron must have plugged the drain with his liberal agenda. Where's the waiter?
It's getting really hard to enjoy this. Where did everyone else go? Why are the lights out?
How dare they ::sputter:: us behind ::sputter:: Get those filthy ::sputter:: off the life boats!
::sputter:: MINE ::sputter:: LET GO ::glub:glub:glub:: HELLLLLPPP!!!

[Kraken]

To me that is indicative of the center moving left. As is the stance of health care, marijuana, homosexuality, and hosts of other things.

The public is gradually becoming more socialistic, although we still shun that word. But our government is owned by capitalists. I don't know if it's still possible to change that.

[YellowKing]

I was listening to the Daily podcast today, and they played clips of both John McCain and Newt Gingrich as recently as 2008 not only believing in climate change, but actively campaigning on it. In Gingrich's case, he was allied with Warren of all people on climate change issues.

The GOP got hijacked by corporate donors who had no interest in any regulations on their burning of fossil fuels.

The good news is Roy Cooper basically told Trump to fuck off, North Carolina's adhering to upholding the tenets of the Paris accord.

[gbasden]

The GOP got hijacked by corporate donors who had no interest in any regulations on their burning of fossil fuels.

*Cough* Koch Brothers! *Cough*

[Defiant]

How Retiring Nuclear Power Plants May Undercut U.S. Climate Goals

[Enough]

How Retiring Nuclear Power Plants May Undercut U.S. Climate Goals

A good friend of mine is leading the charge on this. I still have mixed feelings but remain committed to nukes on some level.

[Combustible Lemur]

To me that is indicative of the center moving left. As is the stance of health care, marijuana, homosexuality, and hosts of other things.

The public is gradually becoming more socialistic, although we still shun that word. But our government is owned by capitalists. I don't know if it's still possible to change that.

EDIT: reread and realized I was conflating two posts. So the below rant , which I still stand by, is not directed at the replied to quote.

Personal lifestyle freedoms are the opposite of socialism. It's the big fucking hipocrasy of American conservatives.

We beleive in Freedom, freedom for everyone to behave like WASPs.

People are becoming more secular and diverse, not more socialist. Now, there is an increased interest in socialism as a mechanism for social justice but the idea that we aren't predominantly capitalist consumers is silly. Shit, in any event the capitalists (banks, industry leaders) don't actually beleive in the individualism of capitalism. Bailouts, subsidies, anti competition laws.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[LordMortis]

This spring has sucked it bad. We were hitting high 90s last week. I thought the Great Lakes and Climate Change and the Polar Vortex has a deal. Fucking Climate Change reneged. Send that heat back down south of Mason Dixon where it belongs. I'll keep my colder than average winters for unseasonably cool summers, thank you. 95 degree spring days can kiss my lily white ass.

https://thinkprogress.org/heat-wave-del ... 640ec9dc2a

[Isgrimnur]

...

Yesterday was the first day of summer.

[LordMortis]

...

Yesterday was the first day of summer.

That's what I'm saying. Spring has sucked it bad. Now that it's summer I'm all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FjWe31S_0g

[Captain Caveman]

This is terrifying.

The Uninhabitable Earth-- Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.

[Kraken]

This is terrifying.

The Uninhabitable Earth-- Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.

Clearly, we need to stop publishing this kind of research. Nobody likes a Gloomy Gus!

I, for one, will be safely dead before all of that comes to pass...but I'm kinda glad I got to live long enough to see how civilization is going to crumble. When I was a kid, global warming was just one of several possibilities; the smart money was on nuclear annihilation, which looks like a longer shot now.

[RunningMn9]

If it helps, Michael Mann has come out in a fairly critical way against that NYMag article. The science does not support the conclusions the article suggests (according to Mann).

[Paingod]

If it helps, Michael Mann has come out in a fairly critical way against that NYMag article. The science does not support the conclusions the article suggests (according to Mann).

That article basically suggests that the damage is done and we're screwed - best case scenario, we're Mad Max screwed. Worst case, we wipe 97% of the earth of life and try again in a few hundred million years. It's not encouraging to get people to try when they're all dead anyway. I'd rather they try.

[Captain Caveman]

If it helps, Michael Mann has come out in a fairly critical way against that NYMag article. The science does not support the conclusions the article suggests (according to Mann).

Saw that. His basic point is that the article is the "worst-case scenario" of all projections rather than the most likely scenario, but it doesn't present itself that way. It also makes several big errors to magnify the doomsday framing, and assumes we proceed in our current ways unchecked. So yeah, it'd be good if we did something to mitigate the damage.

[El Guapo]

If it helps, Michael Mann has come out in a fairly critical way against that NYMag article. The science does not support the conclusions the article suggests (according to Mann).

That article basically suggests that the damage is done and we're screwed - best case scenario, we're Mad Max screwed. Worst case, we wipe 97% of the earth of life and try again in a few hundred million years. It's not encouraging to get people to try when they're all dead anyway. I'd rather they try.

Sort of. Admittedly I skimmed the article in parts, but my understanding of the argument is that most of the discussion on global warming centers around what is currently the median expected outcome - that the Earth will warm an average of 2 - 4 degrees, and that the effects will be painful (especially in particular regions of the world), but not globally catastrophic. I take the point of this argument (which I have read variations on elsewhere) is that there is some uncertainty in the science, and that everyone should be aware that while that's the current expected median outcome (on the current trajectory), it's also possible that the outcome could be much worse, and that it *could* have globally catastrophic effects.

And I do think that's important to bear in mind. Like, if there's a 3% chance of Water World or Mad Max, that's probably not going to come to pass, but the risk is significant enough that it merits additional global efforts.

[RunningMn9]

I don't doubt that, but hyperbole (or even perceived hyperbole) will just get ignored as nonsense, and will damage the reputation of climate science as a whole. Unless you are funny about it, like what they did with The Newsroom.

[pr0ner]

Andrew Freedman has a very well reasoned response to the Wallace-Wells story, featuring plenty of quotes from Mann.

It makes a couple good points - yes, we're warming, yes, something needs to be done, but no, the fear doesn't need to be paralyzing, and stories that do nothing but paint doomsday scenarios don't do anyone any favors.

[em2nought]

Ancient Cypress forest found sixty miles off the coast of Alabama. http://nypost.com/2017/07/17/ancient-un ... tists-say/

[naednek]

As someone who works for CARB, today I learned that our Cap and Trade program has been extended to 2030!

[Zaxxon]

As someone who works for CARB, today I learned that our Cap and Trade program has been extended to 2030!

[Enough]

Hey look, here's the Trump admin/our government celebrating victory over scientists,

https://twitter.com/EnergyPressSec/stat ... 7984492545

[noxiousdog]

How accurate is the article?

[Enough]

Which part and according to who? Regardless, they are peacocking on "winning the fight against climate scientists" and in the larger sense just showing this admin's disdain for science in general.

[noxiousdog]

Which part and according to who? Regardless, they are peacocking on "winning the fight against climate scientists" and in the larger sense just showing this admin's disdain for science in general.

Ok, so it's the tweet that bothers you and not the article?

[Enough]

Which part and according to who? Regardless, they are peacocking on "winning the fight against climate scientists" and in the larger sense just showing this admin's disdain for science in general.

Ok, so it's the tweet that bothers you and not the article?

The tweet bothered me, but I wasn't overly impressed by the article either.

[noxiousdog]

The tweet bothered me, but I wasn't overly impressed by the article either.

Because it's inaccurate, or because you don't like the implication?

Specifically, are scientific societies politicizing facts by jumping aggressively on details that their opponents get wrong, while giving their allies a free pass?

Or, is The Hill just cherry picking their data?

FWIW, I thought the mail that Keith Seitter sent is perfectly reasonable, and that the article is over the top. At the same time, Joe Kernan's question was terrible and Perry could have given a real answer and bypassed the obfuscation.

[LordMortis]

Or, is The Hill just cherry picking their data?

That is often my experience with them. Enough so that I read them with a grain of salt and would never use them a primary source.

[Enough]

The tweet bothered me, but I wasn't overly impressed by the article either.

Because it's inaccurate, or because you don't like the implication?

Specifically, are scientific societies politicizing facts by jumping aggressively on details that their opponents get wrong, while giving their allies a free pass?

Or, is The Hill just cherry picking their data?

FWIW, I thought the mail that Keith Seitter sent is perfectly reasonable, and that the article is over the top. At the same time, Joe Kernan's question was terrible and Perry could have given a real answer and bypassed the obfuscation.

I agree the question was very poorly worded, but I also think if you are at all interested in the climate you would get the implication of the question is to ask if CO2/greenhouse gases are the primary cause of current climate change.

I think the click-bait headline that deconstructs this all down to a political fight between Perry and climate scientists and celebrates that Perry is 'winning' strikes me as about as unscientific and lame as you can get heh.

In terms of scientific societies, why the broad brush? I thought this article was limited to the AMS response? And is the AMS on the hook for correcting any misstatement now because they fact-checked Perry in Seitter's letter? I am fine with them using a bit of triage to focus on the most critical misstatements. I bet they don't send off letters each time a climate skeptic makes headlines either.

[Isgrimnur]

The Hill

A top Environmental Protection Agency official resigned Tuesday in protest of the direction the EPA has taken under President Trump.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Southerland ended her 30-year run at the agency with a scathing exit letter in which she claimed that “the environmental field is suffering from the temporary triumph of myth over truth.” She last worked as the director of science and technology in the Office of Water.

“The truth is there is NO war on coal, there is NO economic crisis caused by environmental protection, and climate change IS caused by man’s activities,” Southerland wrote, directly rejecting many of Trump’s claims.
...
She took aim in particular at Trump's demand that two federal regulations be struck from the books for every new one added.

“Should EPA repeal two existing rules protecting infants from neurotoxins in order to promulgate a new rule protecting adults from a newly discovered liver toxin?” she wrote. “Faced with such painful choices, the best possible outcome for the American people would be regulatory paralysis where no new rules are released so that existing protections remain in place.”
...
An EPA spokesman questioned the timing of Southerland stepping down.

"It's hard to believe that Elizabeth Southerland is retiring because of a budget proposal and not because she's eligible for her government pension,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told Environment & Energy Publishing in an email.

EENews

Jahan Wilcox has joined EPA as a strategic communications adviser. Wilcox has worked on several Republican campaigns, including Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-Fla.) 2016 White House bid, as well as the Republican National Committee.

[Max Peck]

OTOH, it is in no way hard to believe that Jahan Wilcox is a weaselly partisan shill.

[LawBeefaroni]

Folks, I'm sounding the all clear. It's going to be in the 60s here in Chicago during the day on 8/4. It's 82 right now. Wet Maldivians and a trillion ton iceberg notwithstanding, it's all good.

This is not man-made, it is our prayers for a temperate Midwest US of A being answered!

[Exodor]

Folks, I'm sounding the all clear. It's going to be in the 60s here in Chicago during the day on 8/4. It's 82 right now. Wet Maldivians and a trillion ton iceberg notwithstanding, it's all good.

I'll counter that with four straight days of predicted 100F+ weather in the temperate pacific northwest.

Clearly we're all doomed.

[Kraken]

Meanwhile, the planet has just a 5% chance of achieving the Paris accord goals.

Global trends in the economy, emissions and population growth make it extremely unlikely that the planet will remain below the 2C threshold set out in the Paris climate agreement in 2015, the study states.

The Paris accord, signed by 195 countries, commits to holding the average global temperature to “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels and sets a more aspirational goal to limit warming to 1.5C. This latter target is barely plausible, the new research finds, with just a 1% chance that temperatures will rise by less than 1.5C.

“We’re closer to the margin than we think,” said Adrian Raftery, a University of Washington academic who led the research, published in Nature Climate Change. “If we want to avoid 2C, we have very little time left. The public should be very concerned.”

...

According to the University of Washington study, there is a 90% likelihood that temperatures will rise between 2C and 4.9C by 2100. This would put the world in the mid-range warming scenarios mapped out by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It negates the most optimistic outcome as well as the worst case, which would see temperatures climb nearly 6C beyond the pre-industrial era.

[coopasonic]

Hmmm, it's too hard so I guess we just forget it and let the world burn. Why should I care, I'll be dead.

[Max Peck]

The Trump administration just disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change

The Trump administration has decided to disband the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment, a group aimed at helping policymakers and private-sector officials incorporate the government’s climate analysis into long-term planning.

The charter for the 15-person Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment — which includes academics as well as local officials and corporate representatives — expires Sunday. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting administrator, Ben Friedman, informed the committee’s chair that the agency would not renew the panel.

The National Climate Assessment is supposed to be issued every four years but has come out only three times since passage of the 1990 law calling for such analysis. The next one, due for release in 2018, already has become a contentious issue for the Trump administration.

Administration officials are currently reviewing a scientific report that is key to the final document. Known as the Climate Science Special Report, it was produced by scientists from 13 different federal agencies and estimates that human activities were responsible for an increase in global temperatures of 1.1 to 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1951 to 2010.

The committee was established to help translate findings from the National Climate Assessment into concrete guidance for both public and private-sector officials. Its members have been writing a report to inform federal officials on the data sets and approaches that would best be included, and chair Richard Moss said in an interview Saturday that ending the group’s work was shortsighted.

“It doesn’t seem to be the best course of action,” said Moss, an adjunct professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, and he warned of consequences for the decisions that state and local authorities must make on a range of issues from building road projects to maintaining adequate hydropower supplies. “We’re going to be running huge risks here and possibly end up hurting the next generation’s economic prospects.”

[em2nought]

Hmmm, it's too hard so I guess we just forget it and let the world burn. Why should I care, I'll be dead.

Those possible "future" folks were going to have very unhappy lives anyway, having no social security income in their senior years.