Tag: Global Warming

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Climate Change Social Change The Data Toxic Hazard

Cleaning Up Black Carbon

Fighting haze and smog from transport and industry may give us some breathing space (literally and metaphorically), by holding back Global Warming for a while, allowing us the time to get some effective legislation on turning back rising Carbon Dioxide emissions.

https://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dbailey/carbon_crossroads_california_c.html

https://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1938379,00.html

https://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/whatonearth/posts/post_1270497028672.html

https://www.physorg.com/news170006509.html

https://geoportal.icimod.org/Dashboard.aspx?did=14

https://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/a-bolder-black-carbon-strategy-may-help-cut-climate-changes-gordian-knot/367450

Categories
Climate Change The Data

I don’t want to alarm you, but…

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2010&month=3&submitted=Get+Report

“The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for March 2010 was the warmest on record…”

Categories
Climate Change Public Relations Social Change

You Know It Is

[ Music Credit : Massive Attack; Album : “100th Window”; Track : 1 “Future Proof”. Listen in : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atbPFkhTzh0 ]

Everybody has a Climate Change story. I remember hearing a colleague explain how she nearly died when driving a rental car in the United States and the vehicle got swept along the road by unusually high flood waters. I remember a contact talking about branches dropping from drought-stricken trees in Central France during the freak Summer heatwave of 2003. I have relatives in Atlanta, Georgia, who talk about the water supply problem and disappearing rivers…

It’s time to tell people who are sceptical that you know Climate Change is happening, right now…

Categories
Climate Change Media

David Adam : Liberal Pacifier

Dr David Adam, Environmental correspondent at The Guardian newspaper, the “home” of the political Left and Liberal in the United Kingdom, was disappointingly pacifying at the “Sceptic Backlash” event in London yesterday evening.

“Please don’t over-estimate the damage being done by Climategate”, he urged the audience, comparing the sceptic bug-bear to the Bush-and-Cheney narrative about dangerous terrorism which used to get people so worked up, (riled enough, remember ?, to sacrifice their youth and their entire Economy to the new American project of killing innocent women, children and men in the Middle East. Such a good decade for Big Business !)

I read that David Adam used to write about scientific research in Nature magazine before he became Science, and then Environment correspondent at The Guardian.

Funnily enough, I seem to recall meeting somebody who could well have been David Adam in First Class on the Eurostar train service from London to Brussels some time in the late 1990’s. If it was David Adam, his declared profession had nothing to do with journalism, or even chemical engineering (which David Adam studied). I can’t be sure. I don’t always remember faces from more than ten years ago, especially people I have only met once, but his expressions and mannerisms when I saw him yesterday triggered the same reactions in my mind. How strange…but anyway…

I was incensed. Outraged. Deflated, by David Adam’s liberal dismissiveness of the power of Climate Change scepticism, to divide a nation, to cause countless arguments – classic divide-and-rule tactics.

Continue reading “David Adam : Liberal Pacifier”
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Bait & Switch Behaviour Changeling Climate Change Divide & Rule Extreme Weather Low Carbon Life Media Meltdown Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Protest & Survive Public Relations Regulatory Ultimatum Screaming Panic Social Change Voluntary Behaviour Change

Polar Bear : Poster Child

So, I’m standing in the G2 theatre at the School of Oriental and African Studies, after the “Sceptic Backlash” event, talking with two Climate Change activists, one Irish, one American.

The question arises : since our lifestyles are causing deadly Climate Change for people in other parts of the world, maybe we should have communications based around pictures of suffering children ?

I disagree. I point out that when the environmentalists put out posters about Polar Bears, that the audience pretty quickly realised that the Polar Bears were being used as a “poster child” for Climate Change, and they started to mock the campaigning.

Continue reading “Polar Bear : Poster Child”
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Climate Change Media

James Delingpole Warmly Invited

Here is a copy of the contact I just submitted at JamesDelingpole.com :-

https://jamesdelingpole.com/contact/

Dear Mr Delingpole,

You are cordially invited to a presentation, with question and answer session, on the nature of Climate Change scepticism in the Media :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

This will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 14th April 2010, 6.30pm (or 18:30), at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, off Russell Square, in Venue G2. Entry for you, as for all attendees, will be free and for gratis.

As you will be able to see from the fact sheets and articles associated with the event, Climategate features quite highly in the analysis, and presumably will be one of the main subjects of the debate :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/sceptics

https://climatesafety.org/climategate-a-briefer/

Now, as one of the principal architects of the Media scandal known as Climategate (in fact, if I’m not mistaken, you named it), I am sure you would like to contribute your insight and experience to the discussion, and that your contribution would be most welcome.

In addition to hearing your erudite commentary in person, I am sure that your presence at the event will contribute an enormous amount in terms of raising the profile of the subject of the Media treatment of Climate Change.

It would also be an opportunity to meet some of your opponents in person, in a public space, and talk things over in a calm, civil manner, which I’m sure you would appreciate; perturbed, as I know you are, by the whole subject of Climate Change communications.

I fully intend to attend the event myself, and it would be a pleasure to meet you in person, shake you warmly by the hand, and thank you vigorously for raising the level of Climate Change urgency in the Media.

Happy Days,

Ms J. Abbess BSc

Let’s see if the great man responds…

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Meltdown The Data

Early Bud Catches Warm

If you’re reading this in the Southern Hemisphere, you will probably already know that the temperatures have been somewhat heated since the beginning of this year.

If you’re reading this in the Northern Hemisphere, and I know most of you are, because I’ve checked, you will probably not have the faintest idea that local cold does not mean global cold.

What’s been happening, to use colloquial, ordinary, everyday language, is that the Climate has been changing at the top of the world, the region near the North Pole. Winds have changed, patterns of heating and freezing have changed, rain and snowfall have changed.

This has had a knock-on effect – some of the areas further South have had a great deal of cooling over Winter. The Arctic has been acting like a giant air conditioner for parts of Northern Europe and Northern America.

You shiver in Paris (or London, or New York), but the Siberian and Canadian permafrost is melting.

Continue reading “Early Bud Catches Warm”
Categories
Climate Change Media

Media Gets Obama Bypass

It seems like Team Obama will be bypassing the mainstream Media in their Climate Change communications :-

https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/12/us-document-strategy-climate-talks

“…A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government’s increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks…Top of the list of objectives is to: “Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change.” It also talks of “managing expectations” of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets…”

There you have it. I’m not surprised, given the appalling behaviour of some of the Gentlepersons of the Press in recent months…

Continue reading “Media Gets Obama Bypass”
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Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science Science Rules

The Great Sceptic Backlash

If you’re looking for a dose of sheer entertainment, then hop on down this Wednesday to Bloomsbury in London, for a public meeting about the dreaded, sharptoothed, hairy, boogle-eyed, Ye Olde Skeptik Backlash :-

https://www.campaigncc.org/scepticsmeeting

There you should find Dr David Adam, esteemed and seriously reputable journalist from The Guardian newspaper, and an itchy-and-scratchy, rabble-rousing Ben Stewart from Greenpeace and George Marshall (no, not that George Marshall) of pork-pie-eating, Trilby-wearing-whilst-cycling and Climate anti-denial fame :-

https://climatedenial.org/

Continue reading “The Great Sceptic Backlash”
Categories
Climate Change Social Change

Hope In Our Hearts

(Wim Mertens, Quatre Mains)

Classical musicians are still welcome to form a chamber orchestra for the Climate Vigil to be held at St Martins in the Fields, London, on the night of Saturday 15th May 2010, just over a week after the local and General Elections in the United Kingdom. For more details, please contact Ruth Jarman :-

https://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/vigil.htm

https://www.campaigncc.org/overnightvigil

Let us have hope in our hearts : hope for reason, collaborative effort, commonsense, Science and survival, and a fearless new Parliament.

Categories
Behaviour Changeling Big Picture Climate Change Eating & Drinking Energy Revival Extreme Weather Low Carbon Life Meltdown Pet Peeves Political Nightmare Regulatory Ultimatum Renewable Resource Screaming Panic Social Change Voluntary Behaviour Change

Nightmare on Easy Street

Every now and again, some well-meaning, or even lightheartedly jokey relative or friend lets me know I should calm down with the story of the risk of Climate catastrophe as it’s (a) not effective; (b) not necessary or (c) way off the end of the scale. Apparently I’m crying wolf, but there’s not even a messy puppy in the neighbourhood.

There are two narratives at work here. One is that people don’t like being preached too (neither do I), and they feel that the sum total of Climate Change communications amounts to somebody high up the authority chain telling them to change their behaviour, somehow making the common man (and woman) responsible for a problem that should actually be fixed by the governments, who have the power (or large companies and international corporations, who have the financial resources).

The moral of nearly every cultural telling of the Climate Change story is “ten things you can do to make a difference”, and a lot of people feel it will mean shivering in the dark with no car and more tax. People are so not into self-sacrifice and abstention from consumerism, and they react badly, even to the extent of skin rashes, to the fear of micromanaged austerity being thrust upon them.

But that’s not why I talk about Climate Change.

Continue reading “Nightmare on Easy Street”
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Climate Change Media

George Monbiot : Wrong Call

There was a long time during my life when I refused to read British newspapers. They irritated me. The stories hinged on the opinions of a few unresearched writers; facts were dubious; the ideological cultures distinguishing the publications were artificial; and the constructed narratives offended me.

I distinctly recall the day I decided I needed to read the newspapers again. It was a chance glance at the Guardian Weekly, on the shelf in an international bookshop in Brussels. In there, I read a piece by George Monbiot, and my reaction was, in paraphrase, “how can he be allowed to write such a thing for publication ?” I was impressed, both at his audacity and his plainspeaking, and the facts to back up his position looked credible.

In overview, it was a good thing that I started to read the newspapers again, even though I have had to wade through interminable barrelloads of rotten opinions and poor research in following the public story of Climate Change and Energy Revival. I have traced the emergence of some almost acceptable Science and Environment writing in the Press, but there has been a remarkable turnaround just recently.

Continue reading “George Monbiot : Wrong Call”
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Climate Change

James Delingpole : Editing Out The Truth

It appears that James Delingpole seeks to edit out the facts that don’t fit with his perrrculiarly sensationalist narrative.

I thought to engage in a little frank discussion, contributing the benefit of my wisdom at this post :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032622/inside-the-seething-green-roach-pit-where-they-eat-their-own/

But I was thwarted.

What happened ?

Continue reading “James Delingpole : Editing Out The Truth”
Categories
Bad Science Bait & Switch Climate Change Media Non-Science Public Relations Science Rules

A Short History of Denial

Why do people deny the facts coming from Scientists on Global Warming ?

“Well-financed conservative think-tanks”
“Unduly weighted outlier views”
“Scientific illiteracy”
“Our message hasn’t gotten through to the American people”
“Organised and systematic campaign”

https://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/04/science_show_on_climate_change.php

https://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2010/04/ssw_20100403_1205.mp3

Mentioned by Naomi Oreskes in the audio presentation :-

https://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/

Categories
Climate Change Extreme Weather Science Rules

The Rain in Sudan

The account of extreme weather continues to mount up, but some Climate models have not been distinguishing between rainfall (precipitation event) changes in tropical regions and mid-latitude regions.

Here’s one piece of research that goes some way towards a new understanding of increased serious flooding in Tropical countries :-

https://www.pnas.org/content/107/2/571.abstract?sid=b9c6c8bb-ee22-4729-a154-5ab4423127cf

“Precipitation extreme changes exceeding moisture content increases in MIROC and IPCC climate models : Masahiro Sugiyamaa, Hideo Shiogama, and Seita Emori”

Flash flooding is not only rising in the Tropics, it’s happening more frequently, elsewhere too :-

https://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=72458&CultureCode=en&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Categories
Climate Change Science Rules

Paleo Lorraine

A very intriguing study from Lorraine Lisiecki, published as a Letter in Nature Geoscience, researching the Milankovitch-sourced theories, and hinting that messing with the natural Climate cycle could have very serious consequences, shaking up five million years of progress, through feedbacks, towards relative Climate calm :-

Outline and Abstract :-
https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo828.html
“Links between eccentricity forcing and the 100,000-year glacial cycle : Lorraine E. Lisiecki”

Supplementary Information :-
https://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/extref/ngeo828-s1.pdf

And yes, it’s quite hard to understand her work at first reading, so she’s taken the trouble to produce helpful educational material, to help with communications :-

https://www.lorraine-lisiecki.com/

https://www.lorraine-lisiecki.com/simple.html

Journalists don’t need to read the research workings – the details of the research are given for peers in the field to be able to assess her work.

Journalists do need to read around the subject, however, to be able to comment on what her work means for Climate Change Science.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science The Data

James Delingpole : Cruel Jester

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters (and those who are hermaphrodite, or in other ways gender-alternative) when you face trials and tribulations of many kinds, from those who have not recognised in you the Light, the Truth and the Way.

James Delingpole is doing his very best-worst to be annoying, or even insulting, I’m not sure, by levelling some personally negative comments towards me. But I have responded in friendliness and lovingkindness, although I might get moderated off the comments page, so I’ve included my words here :-

https://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100032622/inside-the-seething-green-roach-pit-where-they-eat-their-own

Continue reading “James Delingpole : Cruel Jester”
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Big Picture Climate Change Extreme Weather Health Impacts

Life Energy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQEEfsOrAEQ

[ Nota Bene : The following was written for all those tragically lost to natural disasters aggravated by Climate Change since last Easter. May you rest in peace. We owe it to your memory to take courage, tell the truth and continue to strive to prevent further, increasing calamity from wild weather, failed rains and poor harvests. ]

Dying is hard work.
The arched back, the retching, the scrambling,
screaming in agony,
the gasp,
the panic
to keep body and soul together.

From first breath, first sore gum,
through grazed knees, peer humiliation,
learnings and forgettings,
broken bones and broken hearts.

The work of living,
pain, just a signpost on the road to flourishing.
The force for better things.

Continue reading “Life Energy”
Categories
Big Picture Carbon Commodities Climate Change Unutterably Useless Vain Hope

Cap and Trade is Going Down

Cap and Trade is….going….down. And that’s probably a good thing :-

https://www.examiner.com/x-12720-DC-Policy-Reform-Examiner~y2010m3d31-Capandtrade-dropped-from-Senates-energyclimate-change-bill

Continue reading “Cap and Trade is Going Down”
Categories
Climate Change Media Toxic Hazard

Phil Jones : My Hero

Phil Jones – untarnished, innocent, heroic. Clean as a recently, cleanly, cleaned clean whistle.

The Media are beside themselves. No longer do they have a public victim to hold up, for us to mourn. No longer can they build the case for Phil Jones as scapegoat. No longer than they dangle Phil Jones out over the evil toothy fishes from the end of the sweating, shaking, rickety gang plank.

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7081921.ece

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8595483.stm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7538446/University-of-East-Anglia-refused-to-share-information-on-global-warming.html

https://news.sky.com

Continue reading “Phil Jones : My Hero”
Categories
Climate Change Meltdown

Greenland Melts Down : Greens Up

https://www.skepticalscience.com/Greenland-ice-mass-loss-spread-to-northwest.html

https://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042460.shtml

https://news.discovery.com/earth/more-greenland-ice-melting-faster.html

https://www.skepticalscience.com/What-CO2-level-would-cause-Greenland-ice-sheet-collapse.html

https://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/4/233/2010/tcd-4-233-2010.html

“…Collapse of the ice-sheet was found to occur between 400 and 560 ppmv…”

Continue reading “Greenland Melts Down : Greens Up”
Categories
Climate Change Peace not War

Green War

https://climateprogress.org/2010/03/29/energy-and-global-warming-news-camelina-biofuel-air-force-test-ethiopia-hydropower/

Great news ! The militaries can now fly their planes on plants !

So as the rest of the economy crumbles under Carbon Tax or Carbon Credit Auctions or Carbon Marketeering, at least “our boys” can continue to fly over poor, underfed rabbles and “bomb them back to the Stone Age”, and thereby kill and maim them, on the cheap.

Categories
Big Picture Climate Change Energy Revival Low Carbon Life Peak Energy Peak Oil Pet Peeves Renewable Resource Social Change Solar Sunrise Voluntary Behaviour Change Wind of Fortune Zero Net

Sustainable Future for Education

Today, I’m going to talk to you about education, and no, it’s not about the ongoing “Texas textbook massacre”, where they want to teach children about “alternatives” to the Theory of Global Warming :-

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/science/earth/04climate.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-schoolbook-massacre-rewrites-american-history-1929320.html
https://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/03/26/why-you-shouldn-t-worry-about-texas-textbook-changes.aspx

Continue reading “Sustainable Future for Education”
Categories
Climate Change

Frying the Sky

What is the average temperature of the Earth ? How can we tell if it’s heating up with all the confusing noise from variability in the system ?

The UAH satellite data record offers a view of temperatures at different heights above the Earth’s surface. It accomplishes this by analysing the outgoing radiation from the Earth.

At 4.4 kilometres above the surface, on Channel 5, where you would expect things such as the “Urban Heat Island effect” to be insignificant, and weather systems to be less randomising, 2010 is proving to be a rather warm year, likely hotter than 1998, 2005 and 2007. Drawing in the 20 year maximum temperatures, it is clear that 2010 is knocking records.

Solar activity is at a minimum, so that can’t be driving this year’s warming. Cosmic rays aren’t causing this warming either, and the warming is ongoing, despite the cooling predicted from decreasing CFCs. The Earth has continued to warm up consistently, despite recent claims that the warming has levelled off or gone into reverse.

We are frying the sky. It’s time we paid serious attention.

Categories
Bad Science Climate Change Media Non-Science

CURRU : Horrible Headlines

The Climate Unscience Rapid Response Unit would like to ask anybody out there with a few spare minutes and a reliable contact with the Daily Telegraph to have a little chat with them about this, their latest “Horrible Headline”, headlighted on their Science page thusly :-

“Will it really be a ‘barbecue summer’? : Forecasts for a barbecue summer are as uncertain as predictions of climate change, argues Roger Highfield : 23 Mar 2010”

They appear to have already bowed to some sort of internal or external pressure to change it from its original form, which appears to have had its datestamp set back to the year 2000, for some unknown reason :-

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7499524/You-cant-predict-the-weather-or-climate-change.html

“You can’t predict the weather; or climate change : Our weather forecasts will always be as unreliable as our predictions of climate change. : By Roger Highfield : Published: 7:00AM GMT 23 Mar 2000”

Continue reading “CURRU : Horrible Headlines”