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A story in increasing fears of climate-change ‘tipping points’

Next up is Juliet Eilperin, documenting the increasing worry among experts about global-warming "tipping point" scenarios.

While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.

Irreversible changes, in the next few decades. Whee!

Eilperin also touches on the political pressure being put on Hansen, and digs up this deliciously Orwellian quote:

Mary L. Cleave, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Office of Earth Science, said the agency insists on monitoring interviews with scientists to ensure they are not misquoted.

"People could see it as a constraint," Cleave said. "As a manager, I might see it as protection."

Yes, Dr. Hansen, this is for your own good. Now please relax -- it's easier when you don't struggle ...

Font size

You may notice that the default font size on Grist (and Gristmill) has increased (starting today and covering the entire site within a week or so). This is being done in response to several complaints from readers and over a year of tireless advocacy (read: obnoxious nagging) by yours truly. The site should be more accessible now, more easily readable by a wider range of people. There will be more scrolling, but this being 2006 and all, I think people have gotten over their aversion to scrolling.

Let us know what you think -- if anything.

(And props to Chris!)

Biodiversity reduces in proximity to humans — so let’s stuff the humans in cities

I mentioned in an earlier post a friend of mine who had caught 14 non-indigenous gray squirrels in her backyard in one week. Well, I have another couple of friends who, upon hearing strange noises on their roof at night, had traps set to catch whatever was up there. The first thing caught was a rat large enough to trip and stay inside of a trap designed for squirrels, followed a few days later by a possum, which looks an awful lot like a giant rat. Neither species are native to the area, of course.

As a kid playing in the woods of Indiana, I would, on occasion, stumble upon dead opossums. One day it occurred to me that they might just be playing dead, like I had always heard they do. I went back once to check and sure enough, he was gone. You would swear they were dead. Stiff as a board, you could prod them with sticks and even pick them up by the tail and toss them. Playing dead is an involuntary reaction similar to a seizure that apparently has enough evolutionary advantages to remain in the gene pool. They don't all play dead, so I suspect that this genetic trait is more common in some areas of the country than others.

And this is why they are going to hell

There are those that take money from others for personal gain. We call them crooks.

And then there are those that take money from oil companies, and in exchange do whatever they can to end the world as we know it. We call them the Bush administration. From today's New York Times:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

...

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet." The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.

...

The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.

I would love to wait by the pearly gates with a camcorder. Won't they be surprised!

You already know basically what I’m going to say, don’t you?

Well, nothing to report on water quality in the U.S. -- all is hunky-dory these days! Good thing, too, because our energies are elsewhere, restoring what we destroyed doing improvement projects in Iraq. Hey, how's that going?

Because of unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning and shifting priorities, the American-financed reconstruction program in Iraq will not complete scores of projects that were promised to help rebuild the country, a federal oversight agency reported yesterday.

Only 49 of the 136 projects that were originally pledged to improve Iraq's water and sanitation will be finished, with about 300 of an initial 425 projects to provide electricity, the report says.

What? But all the money we're spending on restoring quality of life to the Iraqi people!

The US government will complete just a fraction of the planned massive reconstruction projects in Iraq before $18.4 billion in federal funding runs out next year, according to a government audit released yesterday.

But ... but ... isn't money put aside for specific projects?

Among the obstacles were sharply higher spending for security, strategy shifts in response to the changing Iraqi environment and increased spending to sustain programs when Iraqis take over, the report said.

...

Water resources and sanitation took the biggest hit among the sectors, losing $2.185 billion, or 50.4 percent of its original allocation, the audit found. The next hardest-hit was the electric sector, slashed 22.5 percent to $4.31 billion.

Oh well. So we're bungling the job in Iraq. At least the water's all clean and drinkable here in the U.S. of A. Right, guys? Right?

Fish Passage Center, R.I.P.

Sen. Larry Craig's long-time quest has paid off: The Idaho Republican has succeed in killing the Fish Passage Center, which has monitored salmon stocks for 20 years. By all accounts, the Center did good, non-partisan science, but Craig didn't like "data" coming between him and his political goals.

The Center's duties were transferred to other, presumably more cooperative, agencies today. Lisa Stiffler has more.

Friedman’s fantastical SOTU speech

His overall fitness as a pundit aside, The Mustache is once again beating the green drum in the most prime real estate in print media. This week, he urges Bush to take on energy independence and global warming in the State of the Union speech (ha ha ha ha!):

I Get the Nic Out of You

California deems secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant Californians may soon breathe a little easier than the rest of us, now that the state has become the first in the nation to classify secondhand tobacco smoke as a toxic air pollutant. In a 6-0 vote on Thursday, the state Air Resources Board put secondhand smoke […]

Snowmen march against global warming

The Onion: always funny.

(via Kit Stolz)

LNG island

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is, at least in the minds of many large monied interests, the fuel of the future. But LNG terminals face NIMBY opposition as fierce as the kind that's stymied new nuke plants. What to do?

How about ... a fake island!

A $1 billion plan for a liquefied natural gas terminal on a 53-acre man-made island in the Atlantic Ocean between Long Island and New Jersey was unveiled Thursday by a new company.

Creative.