2012 Another Record-Setter For Weather, Fits Climate Forecasts 336
Layzej writes "The Associated Press reports: 'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes. As 2012 began, winter in the U.S. went AWOL. Spring and summer arrived early with wildfires, blistering heat and drought. And fall hit the eastern third of the country with the ferocity of Superstorm Sandy. Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records. 2012 is on track to be the warmest year on record in the United States. Worldwide, the average through November suggests it will be the eighth warmest since global record-keeping began in 1880 and will likely beat 2011 as the hottest La Nina year on record. America's heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at "normal." Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012. But the most troubling climate development this year was the melting at the top of the world. Summer sea ice in the Arctic shrank to 18 percent below the previous record low. These are "clearly not freak events," but "systemic changes," said climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute in Germany. "With all the extremes that, really, every year in the last 10 years have struck different parts of the globe, more and more people absolutely realize that climate change is here and already hitting us."'"
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
on the bright side..."end of the world" forecasts were proven wrong when things seemed to go on as normal today...leading end of the world theorists to re-evaluate their models.
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Careful, your contempt of everyone else is showing.
Re:in other news... (Score:4, Informative)
Because contempt for people causes all our lives to worsen. Have contempt for what people do, go ahead, but distinguish between that and the persons themselves.
It's very subtle and hard to understand. But I don't wish you harm because you can't figure it out.
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And here's the problem. The uneducated masses see,
1. scientific theory like Global Warming
2. end of the world theory
in the news and they think "theory this, theory that. One wrong means both likely wrong".
Most of the population doesn't even know how science works or what is the scientific method. Some may say "but they learn it in school" - they also learn how to complete the square and do long division and how many know how to do that *today*?
Actually one problem is that they hear GW alarmists claiming that GW will cause the end of the world. Some of them even claim it will turn Earth into Venus! So, naturally they lump GW alarmists in with other EOTW crackpots.
People don't view 2012 as a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.
We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.
Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.
We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.
A second dust bowl would be an "event" and it's a possibility if we enter into a many year drought. Hell, Texas alone lost half a billion trees in the current drought [grist.org] and it's at $8 billion and counting [statesman.com]. If that drought rolls into next year and they have a dry winter followed by another drought ... well, the topsoil those half billion trees were holding down will be dry and loose. Bad condition worsens and you could be looking at an "event" as meat prices rise in the US.
You might not remember the dirty thirties [wikipedia.org] but my midwestern grandparents talk about it like it was death for everything.
Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless there is some *serious* (like, freeking flooding!) Torrential downpouring here in the plains states before the next summers dry spell, it *will* blow.
Trenching crews reporting dry soil 4 ft down (over a meter), that can't cling to the trenching blade at all due to its dryness should be important to you, if you like to at food, and live in the US.
This whole winter, in my area it has: lightly drizzled once. Rained once with 2in precip, snowed once with 1in precip.
After a protracted summer drought season that killed corn and soy crops.
If this continues, planting will *NOT* be successful, soil cover will not recover, and seasonal wind changes will blow the top soil, 1930s style.
So yeah. Tell me about how you are prepared with your air conditioners some more here people. For real.
Re:People don't view 2012 as a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
I know anectdotes aren't data.
So, here's a little data for you [plantmaps.com]
Note the hugely impacted area.
It's dryer than an old woman's cunt out here.
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Here's a nation wide drought map [plantmaps.com] based on soil moisture measurments evaluated agains annual mean values.
See anything disturbing? I do.
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AFAIK the dust bowl was in large part due to the farming practices, not pollution or a drought.
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It was both.
However, many young farmers here in flyoverland have forgotten about the dust bowl, and pulled out the windbreaks. (So they can till another 2 to 5 acres.)
The problem with blowng dust is that it is erosive, and once it starts, it damages windbreaks and groundcover that would otherwise hold, and thus continues to blow.
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This is why its such a problem when false predictions are trumpeted across news headlines. Credibility is a really important thing right now, and as an example maybe about 10% of the people on slashdot Ive seen have any left.
Every time someone makes a prediction that Global Warming will cause temps to rise 10 degrees next year or something absurd, it hurts the credibility of the entire "AGW" scientific community. And then people wonder why noone takes it seriously!
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No because in the preceding decades to that:
-New york city's subway is flooded a third of the time
-Tornadoes cause ten billion damages per season
-Tropical diseases kill hundreds in those region
-Northern Europe gets new England climate
-Let's be honest they will have been fighting for decades already.
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No because in the preceding decades to that:
-New york city's subway is flooded a third of the time
-Tornadoes cause ten billion damages per season
-Tropical diseases kill hundreds in those region
-Northern Europe gets new England climate
-Let's be honest they will have been fighting for decades already.
Just to be clear: you're not denying the events, you're arguing that they will be gradual enough for people not to connect the dots?
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Yes, exactly.
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I don't believe I do ignore the others. The drift towards lower violent crime in first world countries is quite noticeable, for example, and has a positive impact on my life. The drift towards a wider percentage of the world being educated and skilled workers has a dramatic influence on my salary, but is also fundamentally positive. The drift towards ownership of capital representing a greater proportion of dividends of work has definitely not escaped my notice.
Climate change is still critically importa
Short-term forecasting (Score:5, Insightful)
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If in the 1980's you were predicting that the world would get noticably hotter in the 2000's, and if almost every year in the 2000's had record global temperature highs, then you might conclude that your 20 to 30 year long-term climate models aren't doing too badly.
Yes, the models in the 1980's weren't all that accurate, and the modellers new it. However, they have had 30 years to refine those models. Ignore the science at your peril ...
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Place more importance on model output than empirical evidence at your peril...
I present to you the temp anomaly from the recently leaked IPCC AR5 draft.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_ar5_draft_fig1-4_with.png [wordpress.com]
please excuse the url source, it is where I happened to find the figure.
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Interesting, posting of fact is worthy of being down-modded.
Re:Short-term forecasting (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought none of the climate change models allowed for accurate short term forecasting? I've been told not to expect short term forecasting (as in, the next five years, the next year, and certainly not the next few months) to be accurately predictable from the models and predictions of climate change experts. Are we working off predictions made ten years ago? I guess I'm confused as to why 2012 was perfectly on track with predictions.
They don't. What they allow is overall statistical predictions. They cannot predict that a year will be warm or cold, only that on average these years will be colder than that (with a certain degree of probability).
However, certain years will fit better into that statistical model than others. If you predict a .1C rise over 10 years, and next year is .01C warmer, it fits exactly with the prediction. That year is nearly meaningless, of course, next year could be a .05 rise followed by a .03 decline and the model could still be accurate over time. The only thing that you can predict with any accuracy using such models is the averages over an extended period of time, which is why when either side points at events in a single year to show evidence for or against global warming they are acting unscientifically (mind you, that may be the best way to convince people, but it's not science). You can still estimate if a year is going to be warm or cold using short-term models, but those aren't particularly relevant to the subject at hand (being by definition short-term).
long-term accountability (Score:2)
People blather on one way or another about climate change.
I think we should keep track of who holds which positions.
Though maybe we'll all be too busy with suffering the effects of global warming to have time to tell people I Told You So.
Leads me to wonder what the prediction markets say on climate change.
Mississippi River and empire (Score:5, Informative)
One of the largest threats to global warming (for America at least) is the continued lowering of water levels [google.com] for the Mississippi River. Historians can correct or amend me here, but empires rise and fall on the strength of their rivers. The US is no different [stratfor.com], and should the Mississippi fail then there will be serious strategic and economic threats to the security and health of the nation.
Not good.
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Where the statement's logic is bit broken, is that we no longer have dependencies on rivers for moving people and goods. While rivers are still economically cheaper than other modes of transport for "some" items, items can travel by other means (often much faster, sometimes much cheaper).
A secondary part of your statement would have to do with agriculture. This of course is impacted differently and harder by rivers drying up. That is why we have a Government that pays people not to farm, yet maintain the
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.... river water is *routinely* diverted for municipal watershed use, and for agricultural irrigation supplies.
Dry rivers == dehydrated cities and dead crops.
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The good news bad news thing about that is we'll just pump more water out of the ancient aquifers that will never be replenished.
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The US is no different, and should the Mississippi fail then there will be serious strategic and economic threats to the security and health of the nation.
The Mississippi can be saved, but only at the cost of its upstream neighbors, which will lead to a mini civil war over water rights.
But the fact is, the American people are subsidizing all that shipping on the Mississippi river anyways.
If we took that money away from the Army Corps of Engineers and just paid it directly in the form of higher living costs, not much would change.
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We made newer rivers.
They're called railroads.
Sure, let's panic... (Score:2, Insightful)
That would be the same 2012 that continues the trend in the IPCC AR5 report [wordpress.com], which shows temperatures lower than predicted by any of the models. That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?
That would the the same 2012 with a drought that joins many others from the past 80 years. [weather.com] Guess what, droughts happen periodically, and this one was very much a local phenomenon within central North America.
We just survived the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Whew. Quick, let's panic about something else!
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That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?
No, some people would be upset if AGW didn't cause mass upheaval, giant floods, starvation, and general destruction of civilization (as scientists have predicted).
"Real-life video"? Jesus... (Score:5, Insightful)
'In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes
Or "reality," as us old geezers prefer to call it.
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Should we be fixing the cause? (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am honestly not trolling here. I really wonder about this.
TL/DR version: Can we really change our behavior, or just start planning for a worst-case scenario?
Should we be trying to combat climate change in the sense that is it really possible? I think that, as a species, we would rather let people in the future (even if they are future versions of ourselves) deal with the problems rather than take hit in the near term for long term benefits.
Coupled with the fact that the most populated countries have a majority of their population relatively poor, I think it is impractical to expect them to stop burning fossil fuels and force clean energy solutions that might be more expensive/impractical (I believe that the industrialized nations consume most of the energy now, but with India and China becoming more economically important and successful, they will also start consuming more energy).
I saw the article about Thorium reactors a few days ago, but I doubt that we can stop burning things for energy in a short term. With all the infrastructure and interests of powerful groups to keep us on fossil fuels (In the words of comedian John Oliver: BP going green? Only in their logo), I don't expect major change in the near future.
Maybe I am too cynical and need to have hope for the future, but I wonder if we shouldn't start planning backup mechanisms to permanently help people when changes happen - right now, we seem to be doing short-term "deal with this disaster now" fixes.
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Realistically? Check out the CO2 emissions during the Kyoto treaty here [wikipedia.org]. The treaty parties managed to take it down a few percent while all the other countries that didn't give a shit more than doubled their emissions. And the Kyoto II negotiations have practically collapsed with only the EU and a few other small states agreeing to a new treaty, meaning 90%+ of the world population didn't. And the main increase is going to come from people wanting cars, there's a little over a billion cars in the world toda
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I think the real question is is it anthropogenic? Your question supposes that "the cause" is entirely anthropogenic.
While I do think so, my final point (like yours) was whether we should be trying to "fix" it or start looking for recovery solutions (i.e. assume the climate will change on a global scale causing effects like ocean rise, extreme weather - irrespective of the cause - and start looking at survival methods). Right now if a place floods people are evacuated. Once the waters recede, they go back to the same place and rebuild. That is like a band-aid - fixing one local problem, rather than relocating them (and t
Yes! (Score:2)
I loved the weather this year. It was our best year yet. If you're from the north country you'll appreciate global warming. Thank you to all you SUV drivers!
Too much momo (Score:2)
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That ice age was the expected result of the "natural cycles" you idiots like to babble endlessly about. The fact that we're going the opposite direction should have you seriously concerned.
How Gradual Is Your Gradual? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really,
You think an ice age is preferable to a gradually warming climate?
I don't think you understand just how gradual a natural climate cycle has been for Earth. Look at this graph [wikipedia.org] of antarctic temperature changes. Notice how it is windowed to -6 to +4 degrees Celsius within today's temperature and how long those changes normally took. If we speed that same change that took 10,000 years up to 200 years and it only ever increases, what exactly do you think will happen to Earth?
Animals and humans aren't going to have time to adapt or evolve in predicted scenarios.
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Re:How Gradual Is Your Gradual? (Score:5, Funny)
" I own an AC thank you very much."
Slavery is not legal anymore .you need to set that AC free. I don't care even if they were a troll, Owning an Anonymous Coward is just not right.
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Oh wait...
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Yeah! Screw food.. Ill live off the decaying corpses of the malnourished!
I got dibs on the brains!
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You are an example of why I want humans to go extinct. The most self-serving species with the knowledge and appreciation of life that will wantonly destroy it as long as their homes are a constant 70 degrees year round.
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Not what the GP said. Please visit http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ [yourlogicalfallacyis.com] (in this case, Strawman).
And as it happens, a cooling climate *is* preferable to a warming climate, because it's much easier to counter. All you have to do is burn extra crap to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (or use methane, it's even more potent). But to counter warming, you've got to *reduce* atmospheric CO2/CH4/etcetera, which means you're working against the direction of entropy. Much harder task. Especially when everybody
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Maybe if you had a clue.... Temps have been rising CINCE that ICE AGE... Oh wait, that truth gets in the way of your dilusionary comment.... sorry...
Time rate of change. An important construct. Think about it.
And do check those spellings....
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in 1975, when I was in High school. The thing that makes me suspicious is that the same people -- James Hansen in particular -- were the major alarmists for an ice age back then
Strange isn't it, that despite all the AGW deniers in the world, not a single one has put this "fact" on Wikipedia, with a citation.
Silly old Wikipedia seems to be of the opinion that James Hamsen was studying Venus right through the 1970s.
Clearly roc97007 must be entrusted as the world's fact keeper.
Re:in 1975, when I was in High school (Score:5, Insightful)
Science is not a religion, it is not less valuable when it gets updated. Your belief not withstanding.
Re:in 1975, when I was in High school (Score:4, Insightful)
Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it. Now, the same idiots
[citation needed that these are the same people]
are telling us about global warming (whoops...climate change).
Boy you sure are clever. And alone. Climate science and models have progressed extensively since 1975.
The earth goes through cycles....and it is billions of years old. 5-10 years of data is but a blink in cosmic time.
Those cycles you speak of normally take thousands of years to progress, giving larger life forms enough time to migrate and evolve and gradually change their patterns so that they can, you know, survive. When you start to see those averages change more quickly, you should be worried about the larger life forms (hell, bacteria and cockroaches will probably benefit). But, you know, I'm asking you to pull your head out of your ass and yet even when Fox News reports that things were pretty shitty this year, you dismiss it with parroted narrative.
You're a serious part of the problem when others are trying to discuss rational ways to curb this disturbing trend. But, hey, you read a TIME magazine article in 1975 and that makes you smarter than people who devote their lives to this.
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Re:in 1975, when I was in High school (Score:5, Informative)
[citation needed that these are the same people]
I believe the problem here is that even it these had been the same people, when researchers proposed that Earth might be returning into a new ice age, their claims were refuted within two years or so and the whole thing - at least within the scientific community - was declared a failed idea. The newer suggestion that the temperatures are in fact rising too quickly has been found to be nearly impossible to falsify, and it's more than a quarter of a century now. So if the GP is trying to make us believe that the evidence is ambiguous and not pointing in any specific direction, he should think again.
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he should think again.
Or just think. First time hurts, after that it gets easier.
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Sorry to burst your bubble but the warming has stalled about 15 years ago while CO2 levels in the atmosphere keep rising, every year the chances that this could be a statistical fluctuations in a long term trend diminishes, all you have to do is look at IPCC AR5 draft figure 1-4 [wordpress.com] to see how badly the models have failed to predict reality; as Richard Feyman [youtu.be] said "When actual observations over a period of time contradict predictions based on a given theory, that theory is wrong!"
Troll much? (Score:3)
If we are dumping shit everywhere and burning carbon because it's "cheap" we can do something about it. Stop burning carbon and move to renewable and nuclear energy is something right? Heavier regulation and requirements for recycling and fines for polluters is something right? Reducing the stripping forests is something right? Severely limiting strip mining is something right?
It's hard to say if you are trolling or just an idiot. Claiming there is nothing you can do about it is worse than claiming a p
Re:in 1975, when I was in High school (Score:5, Insightful)
Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.
Yes, but that was when they measured temperatures using a few dozen thermometers spread around the country and wrote the data in little log books using pencils. They also hadn't developed any decent methods for gathering historical temperature data.
Now we've got weather satellites providing real time, worldwide temperature data with a resolution of a few meters. We can measure polar ice coverage from the sky, polar ice thickness from underneath, Greenland's glacier flow rates, etc., etc. We also have millions of years of temperature/CO2 data from ice cores in the Antarctic, all cross referenced with other data sets like ancient tree ring data so we can make fairly accurate guesses about past temperatures.
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Time magazine & researchers were telling us what to do about the upcoming ICE AGE, and how to survive it.
You were also listening to disco at the roller rink. Shows what you know.
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You know you don't have to rely on Time magazine and unnamed researchers (I actually know which ones you are referring to in so far as the ones proposing global dimming would have a significant effect, although Time couldn't get them to go on record to say what they wanted so they had to invent a source - 'climatalogical cassandras'). You can read the peer reviewed literature. You know the problem with doing that? As far back as the 1970s researchers were, broadly speaking, predicting global warming. There
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Funny)
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you *know* we're in trouble.
Yes, we all got the memo... Just a few more hours for the whole World to end, anyways; so what if record temperatures were set? Or Fox news reported the truth?
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Next you're going to be telling me the president of Exxon has come out on the side of global warming.
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I don't thinks a sociopath like yourself to care. We'll be happy if you don't develop a taste for human flesh.
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If you think global warming is all the conservatives' fault, you're not really thinking about the problem at all.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Informative)
Mindless conservatives may not have caused it, but they consistently restrict or obstruct discussion that would lead to mitigation of the process. Just look at the anti-global-warming pseudo-science being pout out by shills for the fossil fuel companies. Here are just a few:
The Greening Earth Society: Founded in the late 80’s by Western Fuels - a coal fired power lobby representing numerous corporations—to promote the claim that increasing greenhouse gases are good for the earth. They are best known for a widely distributed “documentary” called “The Greening of Planet Earth” in which it was claimed that global warming was going to turn the earth into a lush paradise of plant life and crop yields. Virtually all of the content at their web site (www.greeningearthsociety.org) and in their publications has been prepared by two or three skeptic consultants (Most notably Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels) and relies on science that has been carefully edited to give the appearance of support for their thesis. Western Fuels and the GES share office space and pretty much overlap in their board of directors, making them all but synonymous with each other.
The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP): Founded in the early 90’s by S. Fred Singer with seed capital and office space provided by the Unification Church (the “Moonies”). Today SEPP’s funding has come mainly from the fossil fuel industry and various Far-Right foundations including the Bradley, Smith Richardson, and Forbes foundations. The SEPP, which according to its web site advocates a "no-regrets policy of energy efficiency and market-based conservation", has been one of the more vociferous skeptic fronts. They have been active in numerous political lobbying efforts and public relations campaigns aimed at discrediting global warming, the link between CFC’s and ozone depletion, and even lung cancer and second-hand smoke (Singer has also consulted for the tobacco industry). Singer was also the driving force behind the 1995 and 1997 Leipzig Declarations opposing the global warming scientific consensus and the Kyoto Protocol. SEPP claimed that 140 “climate scientists” had signed at least one of them. There were numerous problems with the credentials of many signatories. At least one independent investigation was only able to verify 20 as having any valid climate science background.
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC): Founded in 1989 by 46 corporations and trade associations representing a number of industries, but mainly auto manufacturers and fossil fuels. They have been involved in numerous well-funded lobbying efforts, multi-million dollar advertising campaigns targeting mainstream global warming science, and several flawed economic studies on the cost of global warming mitigation. In the face of ever mounting evidence they began to unravel in the late 90’s when several members left the coalition (most notably British Petroleum, Daimler Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors). Today they are defunct.
The Information Council on the Environment (ICE): Founded in 1991 the National Coal Association, Western Fuels, and Edison Electric—all coal or coal-fired power lobbies. They are best known for a public disinformation campaign that made use of four prominent skeptic consultants (Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling, S. Fred Singer, and Sherwood Idso), a public relations firm (William Bracy Inc.), and a polling firm (Cambridge Reports). According to internal Cambridge Reports memos the goal of the campaign was to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact”. Based on the research summarized in these memos print and broadcast advertising spots were then targeted specifically at "young, low-income women" and "older, less-educated men from large families who are not typically active information seekers”. Emphasis was placed on districts which rely on coal-fired power and heat, and nationally syndicated conservative talk shows that are
re: its too late... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a meme big carbon has been pushing for a while, and is likely nonsense. We have seen, with moderately little effort and in a reasonably short time, significant rejuvenation of the great lakes, replishment of the ozone layer, reductions in acid rain and particulate emissions.
None are worthy of a âoeMission Accomplishedâ banner yet, but we already experience the benefits of the work in progress.
In each case, the conventional wisdom was that the damage wasnâ(TM)t reversible and the efforts would be herculean.
The herculean effort was over-riding the well paid campaigns to suppress any effort to address these problems. In retrospect, executing all of the advertising professionals and Phd-for-hires would have saved a lot of time, money and damage.
People have a history of innovation, and I doubt that this is beyond us. We have to get fat, dumb and happy out of the way.
Re: its too late... (Score:4, Informative)
The ozone destroyers, acid rain and particulate emissions all have relatively short lifetimes in the atmosphere. All it takes to to reduce the damage they caused is to reduce or eliminate emissions of the things that caused them and they wash out in a few years (or decades in the case of ozone destroyers). That isn't the case with CO2 or more generally carbon in the active carbon cycle. Once it is there it takes thousands of years for natural processes to reduce the level significantly. That means on human time scales it's close to irreversible. Even if we do things to actively remove carbon from the carbon cycle it's hard to imagine we could do it any where nearly as fast as we put it in. Once we stop adding carbon to the cycle the changes will start slowing down after 30 or 40 years but even then it will take hundreds of years for the ice caps to catch up with the forcing. The other thing that's irreversible is species extinction. Once they're gone, they're gone.
So you're right, we have to overcome the efforts to suppress addressing the problem but that just stops it from getting worse (after a few decades). The changes already wrought won't go away anytime soon.
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I disagree. The fact that FOX is covering it is incredibly telling. When "head in the sand" individuals are tuning around in their admission to a problem, it is a good way to convince other "head in the sand" individuals.
-- MyLongNickName
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing the cheque from the denialists [wikipedia.org] was late this month. This is just a warning shot and normal service will be resumed fairly soon...
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However, not to be a denier just a questioner, how can we tell if this is just part of the statistical variations to be expected over time rather than an actual real trend?
A part of the answer to your question can be found here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html [noaa.gov] . To get the full impact you need to watch the whole thing right to the very end, 3:15.
--
.nosig
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Interesting)
But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening? Or just question how much man contributes to it and by what measures? Realize that in the past Siberia flash froze for some reason (probably not man) and that Iraq used to be the "fertile crescent". So the question is, are we the cause of these events or do they just happen despite us?
That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting. Saves tons of gas and solves traffic issues. I don't think much would change if I went into the office 3 days a week instead of 5, except the amount of gas I purchase.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Insightful)
The denialists have shifted their arguments as the evidence for climate change has become stronger and as we have been subject to daily "weather" that shows that climate change is happening and actually exceeding the "worst case" models.
At first they were just denialists stating that it isn't happening. As the climate has actually started to change and we have record heat, drought, flood, etc. they it has become harder to deny that climate change is happening. So, they have shifted their arguments to "we didn't cause it and there is nothing we can do about it". They cite a lot of dubious "evidence" (all of which has been debunked by actual scientists).
There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose) but the denialists take the position that it's not our fault and we can't do anything. As usual, it pays to follow the money and you find the fossil fuel industries behind all of the denialist "science" and find them spreading all of this FUD.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of sensible things we can do to stop burning fossil fuels (such as the telecommuting idea you propose)
Electricity generation produces more CO2 than telecommuting. A few more nuclear power stations would reduce emissions more than people giving up their SUVs would (I think the "you'll have to drive a really crappy small car!!" argument is also put out by the oil companies to help the people deny...)
See: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html [epa.gov]
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...plus if people stayed at home they'd all be using individual air-conditioners/heaters/lights rather than the shared ones at the office.
That might offset the benefit of them not driving to work.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:4, Funny)
That said, one of the easiest changes to make is for governments to start giving incentives for telecommuting.
Sorry. Not going to happen on any grand scale. You'll will have to shower and dress regularly for some time yet.
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But do most denialists deny that climate change is actually happening? Or just question how much man contributes to it and by what measures?
The denialists keep shifting stance in the much same way the the creationists do. One day they'll be convinced of one thing, then the pesky science shoots it down, the next day it's something else that's the real reason. It's obvious they never do any research, they just parrot the reason du jour, claiming it as absolute truth.
To answer the question: Yes. When they ran out of reasons why it wasn't happening, they all shifted to whether it was man made.
Despite the simplicity of the greenhouse effect and the
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The denialists sound more like scientists to me...
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Really?
So why is it that the 'believers' are the ones causing their changes in argument (step by painful step) by showing them the evidence?
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that is how science works. If science is "painful" to them maybe they shouldn't be doing it. I'm probably more educated in the field than most being a scientist doing other stuff and having read much of the IPCC reports, and I would agree that AGW is currently the most plausible explanation for the observed rise in global average temperature. The rest of the stuff is interesting but not predicted with any accuracy at all (in the models I have seen). For example, from the news article (which probably misquotes the actual researchers), here we see the failure of the model to predict things taken as evidence of its success (wtf):
"There were other weather extremes no one predicted: A European winter cold snap that killed more than 800 people. A bizarre summer windstorm called a derecho in the U.S. mid-Atlantic that left millions without power. Antarctic sea ice that inched to a record high. More than a foot of post-Thanksgiving rain in the western U.S. Super Typhoon Bopha, which killed hundreds of people in the Philippines and was the southernmost storm of its kind."
Even with regards to global temps, the fact the "believers" needed to be forced to double check the validity of their sensor readings belies an unscientific attitude.
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They'll take any denial that allows them to not actually do anything, and will help them prevent anyone else from doing anything, to fix the issue.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:4, Insightful)
I would rather here about this from Fox News than most anyone else. Just like I would rather hear about Obama issues from MSNBC and the NFL being the best American sports league from the MLB & NBA.
Re:-1 for linking to FOX news (Score:5, Informative)
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You guys do understand the difference between a Foxnews article, and an AP Wire article, right?
If the Fox News article and the AP Wire story are the same, whose the bigot?
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there has to be a better source
The "good" thing about FOX compared to CNN is that there is some level of chaos in FOX, and reports that are decidedly pro-science and sometimes liberal and even left-leaning somehow get through - I've seen a couple of very positive reports about the Occupy movement, on the FOX News website. I can only conclude that the censoring process on FOX is somewhat porous and random.
Not so with CNN: those guys are systematic to the core, and always, immutably and constantly right-leaning.
Hundred-year flood and other extremes... (Score:2)
.
Sort of like the "hundred year flood", is there a "hundred year freeze" or a "hundred year overheat" which marks the extreme cold or hot temperatures one would expect to find once in one-hundred y
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Re:Of course climate change is happening (Score:5, Insightful)
Global temperatures have not risen - they have risen more slowly than predicted. Well, that's me convinced!
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Thanks for proving that the mentally ill still have access to the internet. However, you haven't proved that it is a good thing.
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If the "hockey-stick" curve were real, we should have the warmest year every year.
It's not a curve. It's a set of points on a graph which, when you smooth out the yearly fluctuations, shows a long-term trend (the clue is in the words) of increasing temperature.
By your logic I could declare that winter's over and we're in for an early spring if it's a degree warmer tomorrow than today.
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Not at all. You have a problem with graph scales, which is fair, because everyone who draws a graph apparently sucks at graph scales.
The hockey stick graph is over a fairly long time scale. As a result, variations on a short time scale are invisible. It makes global warming look like a very fast temperature increase. It is, compared to the historical rate of temperature increases over long time scales.
On shorter timescales, there's a huge amount of variability -- seasonal, year-to-year, El Nino cycles, etc.
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Without even one mention of these ionospheric heaters that ARE in use all over the world by every capable government in the first 38 comments available to this article leads one to believe that slashdot itself has been usurped and the comments posted (readable) are a continued effort to smokescreen the absolute truth of this global warming man-made disaster. If this confrontational comment is correct, no one in the general public reading slashdot will be able to view it, remarkably. WAY TO GO (here's to your form of censorship) SLASHDOT
Took you a while to wake up this morning. Must not have palmed your meds last night.
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the IPCC is about as reliable a source as FOX news. Both are rubbish and you would do well to avoid using either of them as sources as they are agenda driven political organs.
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depending on how you build averages, zero years, since 1998
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For how many years in a row, now, has each year been the hottest year on record?
According to the media, every year. Never mind that 1988 was hotter in the midwest than 2012, and 1930 dustbowl was hotter than the drought and lack of rain in 1988.
Really, it was a bumper crop for most stuff where I live in Southern Ontario. Some places didn't get rain here, or were just outside the belted zones. And got hit hard just like in '88 but for others this was an awesome year for apples,wheat, rye and soy.