Photo by Sebastian Anthony.

A version of this post originally appeared on Climate Progress.

Journalist Bill Blakemore has a great piece on ABC’s website called “‘Hug the Monster’ for Realistic Hope in Global Warming (or How to Transform Your Fearful Inner Climate).”

He offers advice to journalists in covering climate change — and advice to the rest of us in a world captured by denial.

The piece helps dispel the myth that climate scientists have long been overhyping climate impacts — when everyone who actually follows climate science and talks to any significant number of climate scientists knows that the reverse is true. As Blakemore writes:

Established scientists, community and government leaders and journalists, as they describe the disruptions, suffering and destruction that manmade global warming is already producing, with far worse in the offing if humanity doesn’t somehow control it, are starting to allow themselves publicly to use terms like “calamity,” “catastrophe,” and “risk to the collective civilization.”

… A few years ago, this reporter heard a prominent climate and environment scientist speaking at a large but off-the-record conference of experts and policy makers from around the world who had gathered at Harvard University’s Kennedy School.

… He told us that he and most other climate scientists often simply didn’t want to speak openly about what they were learning about how disruptive and frightening the changes of manmade global warming were clearly going to be for “fear of paralyzing the public.”

That speaker now has an influential job in the Obama administration.

Climate scientists have been consistently downplaying and underestimating the risks for three main reasons. First, their models tended to ignore the myriad amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks that we now know are kicking in (such as the defrosting tundra).

Second, they never imagined that the nations of the world would completely ignore their warnings, that we would knowingly choose catastrophe. So until recently they hardly ever seriously considered or modeled the do-nothing scenario, which is a tripling (820 parts per million [ppm]) or quadrupling (1,100 ppm) of preindustrial levels of carbon dioxide over the next 100 years or so. In the last two or three years, however, the literature in this area has exploded, and the picture it paints is not pretty.

Third, as Blakemore (and others) have noted, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are generally reticent and cautious in stating results — all the more so in this case, out of the mistaken fear that an accurate diagnosis would somehow make action less likely. Yes, it’d be like a doctor telling a two-pack-a-day patient with early-stage emphysema that their cough is really not that big a deal, but would they please quit smoking anyway. We live in a world, however, where anyone who tries to explain what the science suggests is likely to happen if we keep doing nothing is attacked as an alarmist by conservatives, disinformers, and their enablers in the media.

Back in 2005, the physicist Mark Bowen wrote about glaciologist Lonnie Thompson: “Scientists have an annoying habit of backing off when they’re asked to make a plain statement, and climatologists tend to be worse than most.”

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the climate situation has become so dire that even the most reticent climatologists are starting to speak more bluntly. By the end of 2010, Thompson was writing:

Climatologists, like other scientists, tend to be a stolid group. We are not given to theatrical rantings about falling skies. Most of us are far more comfortable in our laboratories or gathering data in the field than we are giving interviews to journalists or speaking before Congressional committees. Why then are climatologists speaking out about the dangers of global warming? The answer is that virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization.

Blakemore points out some other climate scientists who are starting to speak out:

 A few days ago in The New York Times, a thoroughgoing front page article about global warming quoted a range of scientists on the overall effect of the global upheavals that can be expected from manmade global warming. Here are three excerpts — bolded highlights mine:

• “The big damages come if the climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases turns out to be high,” said Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a climate scientist at the University of Chicago. “Then it’s not a bullet headed at us, but a thermonuclear warhead.” (Recent scientific studies report the climate’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases is proving to be higher than expected.)
• Ultimately, as the climate continues warming and more data accumulate, it will become obvious how clouds are reacting. But that could take decades, scientists say, and if the answer turns out to be that catastrophe looms, it would most likely be too late.
• “Even if there were no political implications, it just seems deeply unprofessional and irresponsible to look at this and say, ‘We’re sure it’s not a problem,’” said Kerry A. Emanuel, another M.I.T. scientist. “It’s a special kind of risk, because it’s a risk to the collective civilization.”

‘A risk to the collective (global) civilization’

Global warming’s “risk to the collective civilization” (meaning global civilization) has been continually spoken of in secret or unofficial or private conversations among engaged climate scientists and government and policy leaders around the world.

Such terms — catastrophe, threat to civilization itself — have been commonplace in carefully worded private discussions among peer-reviewed experts that this reporter and other journalists have often experienced and sometimes engaged in.

I heard that from many, many climate scientists in private as far back as 2005 and 2006, which is why I titled my book Hell and High Water. Other journalists heard the same, which is why, for instance, Elizabeth Kolbert wrote at the time:

It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.

So what does Blakemore mean by “Hug the Monster,” by his “Metaphor to Change Fear Into Action and Extinguish the Panic and Despair so Deadly in a Great Crisis”? He explains:

“Hug the monster” is a metaphor taught by U.S. Air Force trainers to those headed into harm’s way.

The monster is your fear in a sudden crisis — as when you find yourself trapped in a downed plane or a burning house.

If you freeze or panic — if you go into merely reactive “brainlock” — you’re lost.

But if your mind has been prepared in advance to recognize the psychological grip of fear, focus on it, and then transform its intense energy into action — sometimes even by changing it into anger — and by also engaging the thinking part of your brain to work the problem, your chances of survival go way up.

Around the world, a growing number of people are showing signs of hugging the monster of what the world’s experts have plainly shown to be a great crisis facing us all …

Sooner or later, everyone who learns about the rapid advance of manmade global warming must deal with the question of fear.

What to do about this fear?

Blakemore quotes from “Hug the Monster: How Fear Can Save Your Life,” the title of a chapter in The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life, a book written by ABC’s Ben Sherwood before he became president of ABC News:

Nowhere in the book does Sherwood mention climate change, but here’s a passage from the end of that chapter that struck this reporter for its relevance to the increasingly public questions about how our global civilization will deal with the advance of global warming:

Fear as a Security System — When Properly Used (Air Force Mantra)

“Without a doubt, fear is the most ancient, efficient, and effective security system in the world. Over many thousands of years, our magnificently wired brains have sensed, reacted, and then acted upon every imaginable threat. Practically speaking, when you manage fear, your chances improve in almost every situation. But if your alarms go haywire, your odds plummet.”

He concludes:

“For survival then, here’s the bottom line. If you’re scared out of your mind, try to remember this Air Force mantra: Hug the monster. Wrap your arms around fear, wrestle it under control, and turn it into a driving force in your plan of attack. ‘Survival is not about bravery and heroics,’ award-winning journalist Laurence Gonzales writes in his superb book Deep Survival. ‘Survivors aren’t fearless. They use fear: They turn it into anger and focus.’ The good news is that you can learn to subdue the monster and extinguish some of the clanging bells. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. Indeed, with enough hugs, you can even tame the beast and turn him into your best friend and most dependable ally.”

And here is Blakemore’s advice for journalists covering this most important of stories:

As a growing number of professional journalists around the world are finding, the story of manmade global warming (and the other evil twin of excess carbon emissions, the rapid acidification of the oceans) is unprecedented in its scale, almost “too big to cover,” and frightening.

But there are now signs that, little by little, voices and personalities are beginning to emerge around the world who are starting to hug this monster, manage the fear, and turning the emotions it causes into action.

For us journalists, the core responsibilities of our profession include knowing how to report unpleasant but important facts — and to do so in ways that nonetheless engage groups small and large, even in a sense “entertain” them, as in entertaining the mind, and to try to win their tacit appreciation for doing so.

Obviously, when the news is horrendous, such as, say, a looming world war or the rapid climb in global temperature and ocean acidification, our job includes the very essence of what it means to hug the monster.

But as this reporter and a growing number of others now working the story can report, once we do so, manmade global warming transforms into “a great story” (in our profession’s term of art) — and even one in which it is possible to glimpse a number of reasons for “realistic hope.”

To be continued …

I look forward to Blakemore’s further writing on climate change, a subject that — considering its likely impact on humanity — has been woefully neglected by most of his fellow journalists.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

In a Rolling Stone interview published Wednesday, President Obama broke out of his self-imposed silence on climate change. He made some remarkable statements, including his belief that the millions of dollars pouring into the anti-science disinformation campaign will drive climate change into the presidential campaign.

Earlier this year, the president omitted any discussion of climate change from his State of the Union address. And he (or the White House communications team) edited it out of his Earth Day proclamation.

But in this interview, Obama was actually the first to bring up climate change, noting it was one of many big issues he’s had to deal with and then slamming the GOP for moving so far to the right on the issue.

The big news was that the president expects climate change to be a campaign issue:

Part of the challenge over these past three years has been that people’s number-one priority is finding a job and paying the mortgage and dealing with high gas prices. In that environment, it’s been easy for the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk climate-change science. I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way. That there’s a way to do it that is entirely compatible with strong economic growth and job creation – that taking steps, for example, to retrofit buildings all across America with existing technologies will reduce our power usage by 15 or 20 percent. That’s an achievable goal, and we should be getting started now. [Emphasis mine.]

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Yes, Romney etch-a-sketched himself to the far right on this issue in late October:

My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.

But I doubt Romney will want to talk about climate change since that statement is a major flip-flop aimed at the Tea Party extremists who now help decide GOP primaries. Also, Romney’s team presumably knows what team Obama doesn’t: Every poll makes clear that in the general election, climate change, clean energy, and cutting pollution are some of the defining wedge issues of our time.

The media also seems unlikely to bring up the issue given that they have generally ignored it as a topic for debate questions, and regular news coverage of it has collapsed.

That means if it is going to be a campaign issue, the president and his team would have to introduce it and be willing to press the case, something they have shown no inclination to do so far.

The president made two other very interesting statements on climate. First, in response to a question on the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline, he basically said that the reason the issue flared up is because of his inability to achieve “sufficient movement to deal with the problem”:

James Hansen, NASA’s leading climate scientist, has said this about the Keystone pipeline: that if the pipeline goes through and we burn tar sands in Canada, it’s “game over” for the planet. What’s your reaction to that statement?

James Hansen is a scientist who has done an enormous amount not only to understand climate change, but also to help publicize the issue. I have the utmost respect for scientists. But it’s important to understand that Canada is going to be moving forward with tar sands, regardless of what we do. That’s their national policy, they’re pursuing it. With respect to Keystone, my goal has been to have an honest process, and I have adamantly objected to Congress trying to circumvent a process that was well-established not just under Democratic administrations, but also under Republican administrations.

The reason that Keystone got so much attention is not because that particular pipeline is a make-or-break issue for climate change, but because those who have looked at the science of climate change are scared and concerned about a general lack of sufficient movement to deal with the problem. Frankly, I’m deeply concerned that internationally, we have not made as much progress as we need to make. Within the constraints of this Congress, we’ve tried to do a whole range of things, administratively, that are making a difference — doubling fuel-efficiency standards on cars is going to take a whole lot of carbon out of our atmosphere. We’re going to continue to push on energy efficiency, and renewable energy standards, and the promotion of green energy. But there is no doubt that we have a lot more work to do.

Obama’s statement above about climate becoming a campaign issue is the last part of his answer here.

I’d say that Obama is half right in his answer. It is certainly true that if, say, Obama had been able to pass a climate bill, then the Keystone pipeline would never have emerged as such a make-or-break issue. But for those of us trying to keep warming below 4 degrees F, it always would have been a big issue.

Obama is also being a bit coy here by suggesting that lack of international progress was a key reason Keystone got so much attention. A major reason there has been little international progress is that the world’s richest country — which has by far the largest cumulative emissions — can’t even guarantee it will meet Obama’s modest 17 percent reduction pledge by 2020. American action is certainly a sine qua non for a global deal.

Yes, Obama has done some valuable things, and he certainly has been thwarted at every turn by the disinformers and their allies in Congress. They, not Obama, deserve most of the blame for inaction, as I’ve said many times. But Obama still failed to push this most important of issues anywhere near as hard as it merits.

And it’s odd for him to complain about the disinformation campaign when Obama has done nothing to debunk it. Indeed, I’ve been told by folks in the White House that it was the White House communications team that muzzled a response to that disinformation.

Finally, Obama has some interesting framing on the opponents of action:

I think it’s important to distinguish between Republican politicians and people around the country who consider themselves Republicans. I don’t think there’s been a huge change in the country. If you talk to a lot of Republicans … they don’t think we should be getting rid of every regulation on the books …

But what’s happened, I think, in the Republican caucus in Congress, and what clearly happened with respect to Republican candidates, was a shift to an agenda that is far out of the mainstream — and, in fact, is contrary to a lot of Republican precepts…. You’ve got a Republican Congress whose centerpiece, when it comes to economic development, is getting rid of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Doesn’t all of that kind of talk and behavior during the primaries define the party and what they stand for?

I think it’s fair to say that this has become the way that the Republican political class and activists define themselves. Think about John McCain, who obviously I have profound differences with. Here’s a guy who not only believed in climate change, but co-sponsored a cap-and-trade bill that got 43 votes in the Senate just a few years ago, somebody who thought banning torture was the right thing to do, somebody who co-sponsored immigration reform with Ted Kennedy. That’s the most recent Republican candidate, and that gives you some sense of how profoundly that party has shifted.

So Obama is drawing a distinction between “the Republican political class and activists” on the one hand and “people around the country who consider themselves Republicans.” I think that is a reasonable distinction to draw, but then it will be important for the president to carry this distinction to its logical conclusion on the key issues. He is basically acknowledging that climate action and clean energy and cutting pollution are wedge issues — issues that separate GOP politicians and activists (and their pollutocrat backers) from a segment of their own supporter and an even larger proportion of independents.

Again, that’s what all the polling shows, but it is most certainly not how the president and his team have been treating the issue, which they have repeatedly downplayed. Let’s hope that this interview signals a change in thinking by the president — a change that he can actually get the rest of the White House, including the communications team, to go along with. That would be change we can believe in.

Photo by Chuck Kennedy/White House.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

You’ll be glad to know that in the last 12 months, that whole climate change problem went away. At least that’s the impression left from comparing President Obama’s 2012 Earth Day proclamation with the 2011 one.

Last year’s proclamation was pretty rousing on the issue of global warming:

Looking to the future of our planet, American leadership will continue to be pivotal as we confront the environmental challenges that threaten the health of both our country and the globe.

Today, our world faces the major global environmental challenge of a changing climate.  Our entire planet must address this problem because no nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change.  The United States can be a leader in reducing the dangerous pollution that causes global warming and can propel these advances by investing in the clean energy technologies, markets, and practices that will empower us to win the future.

While our changing climate requires international leadership, global action on clean energy and climate change must be joined with local action.

Can’t argue with any of that. Sure, Obama isn’t doing bloody much on climate change, and he’s nonsensically censoring it from his major speeches even though it may be one of the definitive wedge issues of our time.

But at least one day a year, when people are focused on the environment, surely we can all come together and at least mention, in passing, without too much fanfare, in a meaningless proclamation, the gravest preventable threat to the Earth’s environment and humanity’s well-being. Yes we can — not!

Here’s the full 2012 proclamation:

On April 22, 1970, millions of Americans came together to celebrate the first Earth Day. Students, teachers, activists, elected officials, and countless others challenged our Nation to confront our most urgent environmental issues and rallied around a single message: the success of future generations depends upon how we act today. As we commemorate Earth Day this year, we reflect on the challenges that remain before us and recommit to the spirit of togetherness and shared responsibility that galvanized a movement 42 years ago.

America rose to meet the call to action in the months and years that followed the first Earth Day. We passed the Clean Air, Clean Water, Endangered Species, and Marine Mammal Protection Acts; founded the Environmental Protection Agency; and ignited a spirit of stewardship that has driven progress for over four decades. Today, our air and water are cleaner, pollution has been greatly reduced, and Americans everywhere are living in a healthier environment.

While we have made remarkable progress in protecting our health and our natural heritage, we know our work is not yet finished. Last July, my Administration proposed the toughest fuel economy standards in our Nation’s history — standards that will save families money at the pump, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and significantly reduce our dependence on oil. In December, we finalized the first-ever national standards to limit mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, helping safeguard the health of millions. We have taken action to protect and restore our Nation’s precious ecosystems, from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes.  And we continue to make landmark investments in batteries, biofuels, and renewable energy that are unlocking American innovation and ensuring our Nation stays on the cutting edge. Our country is on the path to economic recovery and renewal, and moving forward, my Administration will continue to fight for a healthy environment every step of the way.

As we work to leave our children a safe, sustainable future, we must also equip them with the tools they need to take on tomorrow’s environmental challenges. Supporting environmental literacy and a strong foundation in science, technology, engineering, and math for every student will help ensure our youth have the skills and knowledge to advance our clean energy economy. Last year, we launched the Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools recognition award to encourage more schools to pursue sustainability, foster health and wellness, and integrate environmental literacy into the curriculum. In the days ahead, we look forward to awarding the first Green Ribbons and recognizing the accomplishments of green schools across our country.

Forty-two years ago, a generation rallied together to protect the earth we would inherit. As we reflect on that historic day of activism and stewardship, let us embrace our commitment to the generations yet to come by leaving them a safe, clean world on which to make their mark.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 22, 2012, as Earth Day. I encourage all Americans to participate in programs and activities that will protect our environment and contribute to a healthy, sustainable future.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

Yes, they snuck in the phrase “cut greenhouse gas emissions” about fuel economy standards (though technically, the standards, by themselves, won’t cut our emissions, but merely slow their growth).

As A. Siegel notes in his excellent column on the proclamation:

… there is nothing there about why ‘cutting greenhouse gas emissions’ would be something that anyone should be concerned about on Earth (or any other or, well, more accurately, every other) Day.

There is simply no possibility of achieving the proclamation’s core aim — “let us embrace our commitment to the generations yet to come by leaving them a safe, clean world on which to make their mark” — without an explicit focus on climate change.

As the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said, we’re headed toward 6 degrees C (11 degrees F) of global warming. Even “a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable,” explained Kevin Anderson, director of Britain’s Tyndall Center for Climate Change.

Heck, the IEA’s chief economist said of 6 degrees C warming, “Even school children know this will have catastrophic implications for all of us.” If only the White House communications team had some school children on it.

Photo by Magadan.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

One century ago this weekend, the great “unsinkable” ship ignored warnings of icebergs in the vicinity, maintained a high speed, hit an iceberg because it couldn’t change course fast enough, and sank. Most passengers died, in large part because there weren’t enough lifeboats.

The New Yorker and the Washington Post have devoted major columns to why “we can’t let go of the Titanic” and why “fascination with it seems to be” unsinkable.

Director James Cameron offered his own answer this week, in Titanic: The Final Word with James Cameron on National Geographic Channel, which I’ve transcribed here. Cameron, who has also released a 3-D version of his epic blockbuster movie on the doomed ship, made the connection between what happened on the Titanic and our climate predicament:

Part of the Titanic parable is of arrogance, of hubris, of the sense that we’re too big to fail. Well, where have we heard that one before?

There was this big machine, this human system, that was pushing forward with so much momentum that it couldn’t turn, it couldn’t stop in time to avert a disaster. And that’s what we have right now.

Within that human system on board that ship, if you want to make it a microcosm of the world, you have different classes, you’ve got first class, second class, third class. In our world right now you’ve got developed nations, undeveloped nations.

You’ve got the starving millions who are going to be the ones most affected by the next iceberg that we hit, which is going to be climate change. We can see that iceberg ahead of us right now, but we can’t turn.

We can’t turn because of the momentum of the system, the political momentum, the business momentum. There are too many people making money out of the system, the way the system works right now, and those people frankly have their hands on the levers of power and aren’t ready to let ‘em go.

Until they do, we will not be able to turn to miss that iceberg, and we’re going to hit it, and when we hit it, the rich are still going to be able to get their access to food, to arable land, to water, and so on. It’s going to be the poor, it’s going to be the steerage that are going to be impacted. It’s the same with the Titanic.

I think that’s why this story will always fascinate people. Because it’s a perfect little encapsulation of the world, and all social spectra, but until our lives are really put at risk, the moment of truth, we don’t know what we would do. And that’s my final word.

If we don’t act soon, the latest science suggests that few will escape the dire consequences, but certainly the poorest will suffer the most and the very rich will be able to insulate themselves, at least for a while.

For the record, as the Washington Post points out, “First-class men, though collectively glorified for letting steerage women and children go first in the lifeboats, actually survived at a higher rate than the third-class children.”

Stephen Cox, a literature professor at the University of California-San Diego, and author of The Titanic Story: Hard Choices, Dangerous Decisions, tells the Washington Post, “I don’t think a myth can develop unless you have a choice that could be very unfortunate or tragic.” In the case of the Titanic, lots of tragic choices were made, including the decision to steam ahead at high speed in the face of iceberg warnings serious enough to cause other ships, like the Californian, to stop completely that night.

The tragedy today is not merely that we are ignoring multiple, highly credible warnings of disaster if we stay on our current course. The tragedy is that the cost of action is so low — one-tenth of a penny on the dollar, not counting co-benefits — while the cost of inaction is nearly incalculable, hundreds of trillions of dollars.

The International Energy Agency warned last November that on our current path, “rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change” — warming of an almost unthinkable 6 degrees C — whereas “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.”

Cameron is hardly the first person to compare our current predicament with the Titanic. In fact, three years ago, Newsweek’s Evan Thomas used the metaphor, unintentionally offering one explanation for why the “status quo” establishment media’s coverage of global warming is so fatefully inadequate.

Certainly media coverage of the problem and the solution has been poor. But why?

In a March 2009 cover story, Thomas provided the answer — the shocking, unstated truth about the media elite: They have “a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are.”

Assuming we don’t spend the mere 0.11 percent of GDP per year needed to avert catastrophe, future generations who are puzzled about our fatal myopia need look no further for explanation than Thomas’ full remarks. He begins with the amazing admission, “If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am),” and continues with words that should be emblazoned across journalism schools around the country and read out loud at every Ivy league college graduation:

By definition, establishments believe in propping up the existing order. Members of the ruling class have a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are. Safeguarding the status quo, protecting traditional institutions, can be healthy and useful, stabilizing and reassuring. But sometimes, beneath the pleasant murmur and tinkle of cocktails, the old guard cannot hear the sound of ice cracking. The in-crowd of any age can be deceived by self-confidence …

Thomas was writing about the current economic crisis, but his words apply far better to the global Ponzi scheme. Indeed, his use of the Titanic metaphor could not more ironically apply to the catastrophic global warming that he and his establishment buddies are all but blind to:

… the old guard cannot hear the sound of ice cracking.

This might just be an epitaph for modern human civilization. The latest science makes clear that unless we sharply change course very soon, we may be irreversibly headed toward an ice-free hothouse planet with a carrying capacity far below 9 billion people.

Finally, there’s one last amazing and relevant piece of the Titanic story that must be mentioned — the disaster was “predicted” 14 years in advance. I first heard about this back in college, because one of my dorm mates was a huge Titanic buff. And I was reminded of it reading the New Yorker piece:

The Titanic took two hours and 40 minutes to founder after hitting the berg — which is to say, about the time it takes for a big blockbuster to tell a story.

Tragic déjà vu, classic themes, perfect structure, flawless timing: if you’d made the Titanic up, it couldn’t get any better. But someone did make it up. Perhaps the most unsettling item in the immense inventory of Titanic trivia is a novel called Futility, by an American writer named Morgan Robertson. It begins with a great ocean liner of innovative triple-screw design, “the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men … Unsinkable — indestructible.” Speeding along in dangerous conditions, the ship first hits something on its starboard side (“A slight jar shook the forward end”); later on, there is a terrifying cry of “Ice ahead,” and the vessel collides with an iceberg and goes down.

As the title suggests, the themes of this work of fiction are the old ones: the vanity of human striving, divine punishment for overweening confidence in our technological achievement …

Robertson published his book in 1898, 14 years before the Titanic sailed. If she continues to haunt our imagination, it’s because we were dreaming her long before the fresh spring afternoon when she turned her bows westward and, for the first time, headed toward the open sea.

Surprisingly, the New Yorker omits the full title of the 1898 book — Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan. Yes, the ship was named the Titan. And it had a shortage of lifeboats, and more than half the 2,500 passengers died (compared to more than half of the Titanic’s 2,200 passengers dying).

In the case of climate change, it’s not a fictional novel that is predicting what will happen, it is science. Full steam ahead.

I think they're getting it. (Photo by B Rosen.)

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

To go by the polls, the high point of public understanding of climate science was 2006 to 2008. That’s no surprise, since that period saw a peak in media reporting on climate science, starting in 2006 with An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation on climate science, and continuing in 2007 with the four scientific assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Disputes on the science were kept to a minimum in the 2008 election since both major candidates — Barack Obama and John McCain — understood and articulated both climate science and the need for action. It wasn’t until after Obama was elected with progressive majorities in both houses of Congress and the prospects for climate action became real that the anti-science disinformation campaign kicked into overdrive.

Ironically, or tragically, just as the anti-science disinformation campaign was ramping up, the advocates of climate action decided to downplay climate in their pitch for action, as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein explained it in his June 2010 article “Can you solve global warming without talking about global warming?“

And the media’s coverage of climate science has utterly collapsed. Indeed, evening news coverage dropped from over 386 minutes of coverage in 2007 to 32 minutes (!) last year:

Because of this collapse in media coverage, Gallup’s polling question that begins “from what you’ve read or heard” is not an ideal way to find out what the public actually knows, as leading social scientists explained to me last year.

Many polls indicate a rebound in public understanding of climate science. Krosnick attributes some of the rebound to the coverage of climate during the GOP presidential contest.

Brookings — and the public itself — puts the rebound on the amazing spate of extreme weather. As Climate Progress reported in late February, Americans are attributing their increased belief in global warming to their (correct) perception that the planet is warming and the weather is getting more extreme. Roughly half of people who believe in global warming said that these were the primary influence:

Gallup, for whatever reason, has decided to downplay the continuing, albeit small, rise in public understanding, as evidenced in their headline: “In U.S., Global Warming Views Steady Despite Warm Winter.” But in fact:

• Their data do show movement in views: The jump in the public’s view of “when effects of global warming will happen” is as large a one-year jump as you can find in their 14-year record (see chart below).

• The winter was indeed unusually warm, but this poll preceded the off-the-charts heat wave in mid-March that blanketed much of the country for an extended period of time and drove a considerable amount of media coverage.

I’d love to see them redo the poll right now.

We see a similar jump in the public’s understanding of the scientific consensus about global warming:

This is all the more remarkable because the president and the media are hardly talking about the subject — though there was certainly a fair amount of media blowback from Rick Perry’s disinformation about the scientific consensus, in part because fellow Republican Jon Huntsman took him on.

And this move is also remarkable because the Tea Party crowd, largely conservative Republicans, generally get their news from sources that have continued spreading nonstop disinformation. Gallup’s figures suggest that the polling numbers for Republicans have hardly budged, which means most of the movement is due to shifts in the views of independents and progressives.

Certainly the partisan divide is large, as Gallup reports:

But again this is mostly the Tea Party crowd, especially conservative Republican males, and that’s what makes climate change a wedge issue.

Photo by Martin Luff.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team has found that a sharp jump in earthquakes in America’s heartland appears to be linked to oil and natural gas drilling operations.

As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

Last August, a USGS report [PDF] examined a cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma and reported:

Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased.

In November, a British shale gas developer found it was “highly probable” its fracturing operations caused minor quakes.

Then last month, Ohio oil and gas regulators said “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth.”

Now, in a paper to be delivered at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America, the USGS notes that “a remarkable increase in the rate of [magnitude 3.0] and greater earthquakes is currently in progress” in the U.S. midcontinent. The abstract is online. EnergyWire reports (subs. req’d) some of the findings:

The study found that the frequency of earthquakes started rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana. In 2009, there were 50 earthquakes greater than magnitude-3.0, the abstract states, then 87 quakes in 2010. The 134 earthquakes in the zone last year is a sixfold increase over 20th century levels.

The surge in the last few years corresponds to a nationwide surge in shale drilling, which requires disposal of millions of gallons of wastewater for each well. According to the federal Energy Information Administration, shale gas production grew, on average, nearly 50 percent a year from 2006 to 2010.

The USGS scientists point out that “a naturally occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.” They conclude:

While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.

EnergyWire points out, “all of the potential causes they explore in the paper relate to drilling, or more specifically, deep underground injection of drilling waste.”

Last year, the Department of Energy set up a committee to examine the full range of environmental impacts of fracking.  I testified to the members and, in addition to raising the issue about methane leakage and global warming, brought up the issue of earthquakes.

The committee said that they were indeed aware of this issue, and ultimately the seven-member panel released a report of environmental guidelines for the natural gas industry, which included a call for more research on “Understanding induced seismicity triggered by hydraulic fracturing and injection well disposal.”

It’s time go beyond mere research and start developing national standards to minimize these earthquakes.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Once upon a time, Obama said future generations would remember his ascendance as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

In a Cushing, Okla., speech Thursday, Obama made clear future generations would remember him for something quite different:

I’ve come to Cushing, an oil town — (applause) — because producing more oil and gas here at home has been, and will continue to be, a critical part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy.  (Applause.)

Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. (Applause.) That’s important to know. Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.

So we are drilling all over the place — right now … [Emphasis added.]

Obama will, I’ve said, be remembered for a “failed presidency” simply for failing to seriously fight for a climate bill. And this speech certainly guts any possible claim for a climate legacy.

Ironically, as Brad Johnson notes over at ThinkProgress Green, Cushing is “ground zero for climate disasters in the United States.” In the last five years, “Cushing alone has been hit by disastrous drought, severe summer storms, ice storms, and wildfire.”

Obama will have precisely one more shot to restore his legacy and, more importantly, to give the nation and the world a fighting chance to beat catastrophic climate change — the debt deal that is cut right after the election. In the meantime, all we can do to divine his intentions is to listen to what he tells the American people. It ain’t pretty.

So how do we divine his intentions on the Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline? Read his lips:

So we are drilling all over the place — right now … That’s not the challenge. That’s not the problem. In fact, the problem in a place like Cushing is that we’re actually producing so much oil and gas in places like North Dakota and Colorado that we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go — both to refineries, and then, eventually, all across the country and around the world. There’s a bottleneck right here because we can’t get enough of the oil to our refineries fast enough. And if we could, then we would be able to increase our oil supplies at a time when they’re needed as much as possible.

Now, right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast. And today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done. (Applause.)

Now, you wouldn’t know all this from listening to the television set. (Laughter.) This whole issue of the Keystone pipeline had generated, obviously, a lot of controversy and a lot of politics. And that’s because the original route from Canada into the United States was planned through an area in Nebraska that supplies some drinking water for nearly 2 million Americans, and irrigation for a good portion of America’s croplands. And Nebraskans of all political stripes — including the Republican governor there — raised some concerns about the safety and wisdom of that route.

So to be extra careful that the construction of the pipeline in an area like that wouldn’t put the health and the safety of the American people at risk, our experts said that we needed a certain amount of time to review the project. Unfortunately, Congress decided they wanted their own timeline — not the company, not the experts, but members of Congress who decided this might be a fun political issue, decided to try to intervene and make it impossible for us to make an informed decision.

So what we’ve said to the company is, we’re happy to review future permits. And today, we’re making this new pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf a priority. So the southern leg of it we’re making a priority, and we’re going to go ahead and get that done. The northern portion of it we’re going to have to review properly to make sure that the health and safety of the American people are protected. That’s common sense.

But the fact is that my administration has approved dozens of new oil and gas pipelines over the last three years -– including one from Canada. And as long as I’m president, we’re going to keep on encouraging oil development and infrastructure and we’re going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people.  We don’t have to choose between one or the other, we can do both. [Emphasis added.]

Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to have unrestricted development of oil and gas “in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people.”

I used to be pretty confident that Obama would not approve Keystone after the election (assuming he is reelected —  if he hasn’t, the point is obviously moot, since Etch A Sketch guy will certainly approve it). Now I’d say it’s anyone’s guess.

As Bill McKibben wrote:

It’s hard not to wonder if those cynics might be right, now that he’s going to Oklahoma to laud the southern half of the project just as TransCanada executives have requested.

True, the most critical part of the pipeline still can’t be built — thanks to Obama and 42 Democratic Senators, the connection to Canada remains blocked, and hence that remains a great victory for the people who rallied so fiercely all fall. But the sense grows that Obama may be setting us up for a bitter disappointment — that his real allegiance is to the carbon barons.

Now a very wise political analyst I know wrote me, “I believe that the more he does on the Cushing leg, the easier it will be to block the Alberta leg.” He is a glass-is-one-third-full guy.

How about you? Do you think Obama will ultimately approve the rest of the pipeline or not?

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

The revolution will be televised. So will the post-apocalyptic fight to feed ourselves on a ruined planet.

Those are two key themes of the wildly popular young adult (YA) trilogy that begins with The Hunger Games, whose movie version comes out this week. The trailer gives the key plot points:

After what seems to be a climate-driven apocalypse, Panem, “the country that rose up out of the ashes of the place that was once called North America,” is divided into a capitol and 12 districts, who launched a failed revolution many decades earlier.

The annual Hunger Games are televised and the rules are simple:

In punishment for the uprising, each of the 12 districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in the vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

The winner “receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food,” all year round.

This is “bread and circuses” combined — by design — since that famous phrase comes from the Latin panem et circenses (also “bread and games”).

The books have sold some 10 million copies globally — and the author, Suzanne Collins, is the “best-selling Kindle author of all time.” They are a shrewd combination of standard YA fare — another love triangle between a girl and two boys … really? — and pop-culture riffs. You have the extreme version of reality shows like American Idol and Survivor. You have the young girl who reluctantly grows into a ferocious killer, a tradition which started with Buffy and Nikita (if you have to ask … ) and now seems to be found in almost every other movie.

The books also had some fortunate timing for the author in terms of catching the zeitgeist, since perhaps the core theme is the 99% (the 12 districts) vs. the 1% (Panem), the poor and underfed vs. the rich and overfed.

I try to stay on top of the latest in post-apocalypse pop culture, mainly because there has been so little of it in recent years. And when I heard the most popular new YA book series was built around food insecurity, I couldn’t resist. After all, as I’ve written in the journal Nature, “Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced.”

The Hunger Games makes that challenge a literal and hyper-violent one. But like much (though not all) post-apocalyptic fiction, the book spends exceedingly little time actually explaining to anyone how we got into this mess.

Indeed, after reading all three books, I find only one sentence devoted to explaining what caused the apocalypse:

[The mayor] tells of the history of Panem. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts … ”

Sounds a lot like global warming, though the books do not flesh out what happened.

Clearly this is the distant future, given that this is the 74th Hunger Games, and some of the technology is well beyond anything we could imagine today.

Somewhat oddly, though, as one fan site explains, protagonist Katniss Everdeen’s home is the “coal mining” district:

Coal Mining — This district is described as being in the area formerly known as Appalachia. The district is also pretty compact compared to some others with a population of just 8,000 people. There is one big clue to where district 12 might be, that we don’t get from reading the book, but from listening to Suzanne Collins read it. She reads Katniss with a southern accent.

Only 8,000 in Appalachia. The 99% ain’t what they used to be. Still, you’d think we’d be off of coal in the 22nd century!

Here’s one fan map:

Okay, well, the underwater parts don’t quite match up to plausible realities, even with melting out all the Earth’s ice and the subsequent 250-foot sea level rise. But hey, this ain’t hard science fiction.

Interestingly, the U.K.’s Telegraph wrote last week that there is a new trend in YA fiction:

The Hunger Games and the teenage craze for dystopian fiction

Wizards and vampires are out. The market in teen fiction is dominated now by societies in breakdown. And it’s girls who are lapping them up.

Many parents might feel worried on finding their teenage children addicted to grim visions of a future in which global warming has made the seas rise, the earth dry up, genetically engineered plants run riot and humans fight over the last available scraps of food. Yet with the arrival of the film of the first book of Suzanne Collins’s best-selling trilogy The Hunger Games this month, dystopia for teenagers has hit an all-time high in public consciousness.

Well, as I’ve said, there is precious little global warming in this book. Not that a book centered around global warming would be easy to make work as fiction, since climate change plays out relatively slowly from a narrative perspective.

In the Telegraph piece, Amanda Craig, “novelist and children’s fiction critic,” works to explain the popularity:

… the new wave of dystopian fiction gives the perfect excuse for why, despite being desperately in love, the protagonists can’t have sex: As Meg Rosoff says, “in a survivalist love affair, you don’t have to worry about having a boyfriend or what clothes you’re wearing, because you’re saving the world.” … Imagining that you’re living in a place in which millions have starved to death (The Hunger Games), been drowned by melting ice-caps (Julie Bertagna’s Exodus), been killed off as surplus because eternal youth has been discovered (Gemma Malley’s The Declaration) or been dried up due to climate change (Moira Young’s Blood Red Road) does tend to make fears about having spots and tests less terrifying. …

Katniss pretends to be in love with her fellow contestant Peeta in order to manipulate the millions watching them on TV. She fights back against the expectations of Panem’s totalitarian regime by pretending to conform. Again, my daughter and her friends find this appealing in an age in which boys’ attitudes to them have been warped by internet pornography.

“Katniss is the kind of strong teenage heroine we were all waiting for,” one put it. “We had Hermione in Harry Potter and Lyra in His Dark Materials as children. If you’ve got a brain, vampires suck.” “Girls aren’t waiting to be saved any more,” Malley says. “They have strong moral compasses, and unlike male protagonists, they have insight into why they are as they are. If you go into schools now, you see teenage girls who are sparky and who think for themselves. Dystopia enables them to have big adventures but it’s also about creating strong characters whom readers care about.”

Warning to parents of tweens: These book are entertaining for sure, with a well-drawn heroine who grows during the course of the books, fights against injustice, and ultimately triumphs. On the other hand, they are hyper-violent, and by the end, Katniss has become a super-jaded and cold-blooded killer. Yes, Katniss has “catness,” the nine lives of the survivor, since she survives more attempts on her life than Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne or James Bond have. But she becomes every bit the killer that the JBs do.

Supposedly the movie will be true to the violence of the books, since they are “co-written and co-produced by Collins herself,” which means they will be quite intense. I’ll let you know.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Did you see the big smackdown Thursday night between MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)? The dean of disinformation mostly just repeated his well-worn falseshoods about global warming, which Maddow shot down.

But there was one remarkable admission from the former chair of the Senate Environment Committee:

I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.

In short, learning about the (supposed) high cost of the solution is what turned him from a believer in climate science to a denier.

Yes, you always have to take what Inhofe says with a grain of (smelling) salt, but this admission confirms what many of us have been saying for years. As The New York Times explained about a 2008 denial conference, “The one thing all the attendees seem to share is a deep dislike for mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases.” If you can’t abide the cure, you’re much more likely to deny the disease.

The journalist Michael Kinsley famously said, “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth.”

Watch it (four minutes in):

It’s long been clear that it’s far more costly not to act. And the International Energy Agency explained last year [PDF], ”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.”

Ironically, the kind of denial and delay Inhofe is promoting guarantees much bigger and more intrusive government in the coming decades, for two reasons:

• We will still have to do all of the same mitigation, but in a much shorter time frame, which means in a manner much less business friendly than if we had passed the climate bill.

• We will have to do a huge amount of adaptation, whereby government spends tens of billions through FEMA and gets into the business of telling people where they can and can’t live (can’t let people keep rebuilding in the ever-spreading flood plains or the ever-enlarging areas threatened by sea-level rise and Dust Bowlification) and how they can live (sharp water curtailment in the southwest Dust Bowl, for instance).

Tragically, Inhofe’s home state is among those poised to suffer the worst and ultimately depopulate. As we saw in the 1930s Dust Bowl, abandonment is the most common adaptation strategy when faced with prolonged drought — and the droughts Oklahoma will be seeing in the coming decades will make the Dust Bowl seem wet and cool by comparison.

The other memorable part of the exchange occurs about seven minutes in. Maddow points out that Inhofe gets a lot of money from fossil fuel companies and the Kochs, so shouldn’t a “reasonable person” think that his “anti-global warming, pro-fossil fuel stance is sort of just what your donors are paying for”?

Inhofe first says “Big Oil” isn’t really that big. Seriously. The top five oil companies made $1 trillion in profits from 2001 through 2011.

Then he starts to ramble about some article that showed environmentalists far outspent industry. He claimed it just appeared in “a very liberal publication” — by which he means the journal Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world.

But what he was actually referring to was a 2011 study by Matthew Nisbet of American University (that got covered in Nature at the time). Of course, that study was thoroughly debunked by one of its original reviewers.

Indeed, I showed the reverse was true, with the help of that reviewer. The data actually suggest opponents of the bill far outspent environmentalists during the climate bill debate of 2009 and 2010:

• 8-to-1 on lobbying in 2009
• 4-to-1 (or more) on advertising in 2009
• 8-to-1 in donations to candidates and Congress members in 2010 cycle
• 10-to-1 on independent election expenditures in 2010

Maddow, of course, was stunned by Inhofe’s claims:

“So you think that the environmental groups have more money they spend on this issue [climate change] than the entire energy industry?” a skeptical Maddow asked.

“Absolutely,” Inhofe replied confidently. “You get the MoveOn.org, the George Soros, the Michael Moores, all the Hollywood elites and all your good friends out there. Yeah, they sure do.”

“I would put Michael Moore up against Exxon on this any day,” Maddow said laughing.

As Raw Story noted of the exchange:

However, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, environmental groups spent $22.4 million on lobbying efforts in 2009, while the energy industry spent $175 million.

What a surprise that the debunked Nisbet report is now nothing more than a talking point for the top anti-science denier in the country.

The ExxonMobil ad that accompanies the Maddow clip is an ironic coda on this whole discussion. The fossil fuel companies keep spending a staggering amount of money to push their views, whereas enviros have sharply scaled back their relatively modest spending.

Personally, I’m not certain that giving so much air time to a well-practiced disinformer is a great idea. I suspect Maddow’s underlying goal was to zing him on his ties to Ugandan anti-gay politicians in the second segment. I’d be interested in your thoughts on this.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Back in November, GE’s TXCHNOLOGIST blog pointed out that climate change “could ruin Texas football,” indeed all southern U.S. football:

The effects of climate change, so far, have been most noticeable in Texas, where a terrible drought has dried up football fields in small towns that used to look forward to Friday nights above all. But climate change will have a terrible effect on communities throughout the cradle of football in the Southern and plains states.

Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas. The home states of the last five college football champions? Yes. But these are also states that are projected to experience 150-180 days a year with peak temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit by the final decades of the 21st century. That’s almost six months of the year. In parts of Florida and Texas the number is likely to exceed 180 days a year. Not only will the high temperatures be hotter, the lows will also be higher, so there will be less relief from the sultry conditions. This warming effect will have devastating effects on the ecology and economies of these area and make watching and playing football outdoors almost unbearable. [Emphasis mine.]

This is going to come as a big shock to the football fans throughout the region, many of whom have been heavily disinformed by their politicians and favorite media outlets.

Indeed, it is the conservative southern U.S., especially the south central and southeast, who have led the way in blocking serious climate action, as it were, making yesterday’s worst-case scenario into today’s likely outcome.

Photo by Gator.

I’m a football fan, born and raised in New York State. Ironically, it looks like warming is going to make football more of a northern U.S. game — though that will be among the least consequential of the myriad global warming impacts.

GE’s blog points out a key danger of the ever-worsening heat and heat waves: “Players will run increasing risk of hyperthermia.”  Andrew Grundstein, of the Climatology Research Laboratory at the University of Georgia, has analyzed heat-related deaths of football players since 1980. In August, he explained his findings in a press call and pointed out some of his remarkable findings, including the fact that “the conventional wisdom that coaches can reduce the risk by practicing in the morning is inaccurate”:

• The death rate has increased since the mid-1990s
• Most of the deaths occurred early in the August practice period, with nearly 25 percent happening during the first three days of practice
• The overwhelming majority — 86 percent — of those who died were linemen
• Most of the deaths occurred in the eastern half of the United States

“Many coaches assume that morning practices are safer because they are cooler,” [said Grundstein]. “But almost 60 percent of the deaths came after exposure during morning practices. The mornings may be cooler, but they also may be more humid which can increase the heat stress.”

Deke Arndt, chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said that based on climate change projections, record temperatures and intense heat waves are likely to occur more frequently in the future. He also pointed out that many U.S. cities have set records for overnight temperatures this summer, which often is associated with higher humidity.

“Overnight temperatures don’t get as much attention as record highs,” Arndt said, “but in recent summers, we’ve been seeing that extremes in warmer low temperatures have been outpacing those for afternoon temperatures in terms of setting records.”

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control reported that an average of 6,000 people go to emergency rooms every year for heat-related illnesses during sports or recreational activities. The highest percentage of them are males between the ages of 15 and 19.

The good news is many of the deaths are preventable:

“This is not just about making sure players drink a lot of liquids,” said Michael Bergeron, director of the National Institute for Athletic Health and Performance at Sanford Health, and one of the country’s leading authorities on how young athletes are affected by exercising in hot weather. “It’s also about making sure they have the time to get acclimated to practicing under these conditions and adjusting the work-to-rest ratio appropriately.

“Even when athletes are well-hydrated, if it’s hot enough and you go hard enough, people can die,” added Bergeron, who has written guidelines for what coaches can do to reduce the risks to their players. “The bottom line is, heat-related deaths on the athletic field are preventable.”

The bad news is, the climate is just going to get much, much worse if we keep listening to the disinformers. Indeed, the GE blog points out:

Grass fields will turn to dust, synthetic fields will be too hot to touch

The near-Biblical drought that has gripped Texas in recent years has parched dozens, maybe even hundreds, of grass football fields. This is a preview of things to come. Drought and water scarcity will likely become more commonplace throughout football’s heartland, meaning more natural turf fields will turn to dust. And while artificial turf presents a plausible alternative to natural turf, synthetic fields are expensive and can cook to 50-100 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the air temperature on hot days (natural turf fields rarely exceed 100 degrees). Artificial turf can be irrigated to bring temperatures down but surface temperatures rebound quickly, according to studies. And irrigating does not address water scarcity problems.

Ouch, literally.

The link goes to a SportsTurf article, “Is there any way to cool synthetic turf?,” which concludes:

What do these results tell us? As of right now, it is obvious that there is no “magic bullet” available to dramatically lower the surface temperature of synthetic turf.  Reductions of five or even ten degrees offer little comfort when temperatures can still exceed 150 degrees F. Until temperatures can be reduced by at least 20-30 degrees for an extended period of time, surface temperature will remain a major issue on synthetic turf fields.

It’s worth noting that the chart at the top of days per year above 90 degrees F is the IPCC A2 scenario (about 850 parts per million [ppm] atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in 2100). On our current emissions path, we are headed toward A1FI, 1,000 ppm (see here). In a March 2010 presentation, climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe has a figure of what the A1FI would mean:

Are you ready for some 100 degrees F football, southern states?

It is, of course, unclear whether people will still want to play football when the land has turned to dust and the nation and the world are suffering through multiple horrific impacts.

“Bread and circuses” — panem et circenses — goes the old saying. Hmm. Maybe the future of sports is The Hunger Games.