Climate Climate & Energy

Walruses trampled as a result of climate change — no, seriously

Here’s a climate-change impact you don’t think about every day: trampled walruses. When walruses get tired of swimming, they clamber onto sea ice to rest. As ice is in increasingly short supply above the Arctic Circle, walruses are huddling on shore in extremely high numbers. And as the tusky animals are liable to stampede at […]

James Hansen talks about what to do now that we’ve passed the ‘tipping point’

For the last few years, James Hansen, the man who first warned Congress of global warming in testimony last century, and the man considered NASA's "top scientist" on climate questions, has been giving talks around the country asking can we avoid dangerous climate change (PDF)?

But Hansen has changed his tune: no longer does he ask if we have passed the tipping points of climate change. In a press conference Thursday morning at the American Geophysical Union, he stated that we have passed several tipping points. He said scientists now know that soon the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer, that huge ice sheets will melt, and the climactic zones will shift towards the poles of the earth, among other consequences.

Climate skeptic steps up

We've finally found someone willing to debate me: Tim Ball, a retired professor from the University of Winnipeg. The debate will be online Monday, Dec. 17, at 2 p.m. CST.

You will be able to listen online through BlogTalkRadio's service. In fact, you can even call in during the show (see the BlogTalkRadio web site for details). You can also post questions on SciGuy Eric Berger's website.

I realize that these types of events don't do much to move the climate debate forward. I'm mainly doing this to test my own ability to answer the skeptic's questions and see how I fare in this type of activity.

For those who miss it live, it will be archived in mp3 format.

Bali climate meeting goes overtime, drops specific emissions targets

The two-week United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, has gone into overtime, lasting past its scheduled end as the U.S., Canada, and Japan duked it out with European countries and developing nations in a battle over emissions targets. As expected, the U.S. team, led by Chief Negotiator “Snarlin'” Harlan Watson, has successfully negotiated against […]

Sights and sounds from an Arctic research vessel

In late November, I began a three-week stay on the CCGS Amundsen, a Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker and scientific research vessel that is spending 15 months in the Arctic. This expedition will be the first ever to spend the winter moving through sea ice north of the Arctic Circle — and at present, I am […]

Forest Service objects to Va. ‘clean coal’ plant that would be one of state’s biggest polluters

I should have added this to my account of state-level coal backlash: The U.S. Forest Service is warning Virginia environmental officials that pollution from a $1.6 billion coal-fired power plant proposed for Wise County would violate federal clean-air laws. In a letter to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the supervisor of the Pisgah National […]

Notable quotable

“The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming. Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines.” — NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally

NASA says 2007 second-warmest year ever, with record warmth likely by 2010

According to NASA scientists (PDF):

Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño -- La Niña cycle.

... barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.

Guess which type of energy comes in last in a recent poll

GlobeScan, a self-styled "global public opinion and stakeholder research" organization based in Toronto, has just published the results of a survey of 1,000 climate "decision-makers and influencers" from across 105 countries, conducted in the two weeks leading up to the Bali Climate Conference (Nov. 22-Dec. 5, 2007).

According to the firm's website:

Unlike public opinion polls, this survey focuses on the views of professionals in position to make or influence large decisions in their organizations and society. This focus, together with the survey's large global sample and good balance of respondents across all geographies and sectors, makes this survey unique.

A bar chart showing the results in graphic form is found below the fold.

Cato’s Jerry Taylor responds to Michael Tobis

The following is a reply to a post by Michael Tobis entitled "Should economics rule?"

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"Should Economics Rule?"

Well, I take it that Michael means to suggest that someone out there -- in this case, me -- would contend that economic analysis should dictate climate policy. I do not hold that opinion. For a brief defense of my position, see my post on the matter at the Cato Institute website. By the way, even a lot of scientists held in high esteem by the Grist crowd would have little complaint with my argument that scientists are in no position as scientists to dictate public policy. See, for instance, these comments by Prof. Mike Hulme, founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

"Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that economists are not, themselves, necessarily right about everything?"

I don't know quite what that means. No one among us -- no matter what their academic training -- is "right" about everything ... so far as I know. The consensus beliefs within any academic discipline are unlikely to represent the last and final truth on every subject within that field, given the limitations of human knowledge. So I agree with Michael but am not aware of anyone serious who would not.

"Economists, meanwhile, claim to have the key to rationality."

I don't know of a single economist who claims that their discipline is intrinsically more "rational" than any other. I don't even know what that would mean exactly. A more crisply stated proposition is that many (most?) economists think of themselves as empiricists. They distrust disciplines that do not empirically test their hypotheses in any meaningful way. Likewise, they distrust arguments that cannot be tested and disproved (which means that the argument in question is actually religious in nature). In that regard, they are much like scientists and think of themselves in the same way.

An important (albeit minority) exception is the so-called Austrian school of economics, which contends that economic cause and effect is so difficult to isolate that the empiricism embraced by most modern-day economists is a practical fantasy. The Chicago school of economics (the bastion of what most people are referring to when they refer to "neo-classical economics") would beg to differ. And in case you are curious, there are both "Austrians" and "Chicago-ites" here at Cato.