Climate Climate & Energy

How the two are related

Science Friday recently had a great segment on cognitive dissonance, defined as:

A psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs.

Because it is uncomfortable, your brain will seek out ways to resolve the contradictions.

So if you think you're a good and moral person, but you fudge a little on your taxes, you might justify this with an excuse like: "I've overpaid in previous years," or "the government is using my money in an immoral way," or "everyone else is doing it."

New research shows that this is not some individual character flaw, but a strong and consistent human impulse. Brain scans show that the brain floods with pleasure when conflicting ideas are resolved.

I thought the segment went a long way toward explaining why skeptics on global warming still exist. When presented with conflicting views, such as "I am a good person" vs. "my lifestyle is destroying the planet," the brain comes up with a way to resolve them, such as, "global warming is a conspiracy cooked up by celebrities and scientists."

This really highlights why we need to emphasize solutions. If we give people ways to address the problem, they won't need to deny it.

Well Oil Be Damned

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pursues energy treaties in South America Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is on a four-nation swing through South America this week, using his country’s oil riches to win friends and influence people. Yesterday, Chavez signed an “energy security treaty” with Nestor Kirchner, the president of Argentina; he will continue on to Uruguay, […]

Someone Alert Ben and Jerry

Indo-Pacific coral reefs disappearing twice as fast as rainforest, study says Forget the rainforest: the coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific oceans are vanishing twice as quickly, researchers say. The Indo-Pacific region, home to 75 percent of the world’s coral reefs, has lost nearly 600 square miles of reef each year since the late […]

A short guide

Lots of economists and analysts on both sides of the aisle prefer a carbon tax to a cap-and-trade system, but political reality is such that the former is exceedingly unlikely and the latter has become all but inevitable. So it’s time to focus on doing it well. One question that came up in the panel […]

Wacky dude makes cool stat-o-meter on what’s happening in the world

OK, so the guy who made this says he finds the “theory of global warming highly debatable,” but this thing is pretty cool: The World Clock. It lets you see a number of (likely somewhat flawed) stats about what’s going on in the world during the current year, month, week, day, or time period you’re […]

More evidence of the link to climate change

The weather is getting more extreme thanks to human-caused climate change (as I've pointed out many times, see here, here, and here).

Now the World Meteorological Organization reports more evidence:

In January and April 2007 it is likely that global land surface temperatures ranked warmest since records began in 1880, 1.89°C warmer than average for January and 1.37°C warmer than average for April. Several regions have experienced extremely heavy precipitation, leading to severe floods. The Fourth Assessment Report of the WMO/UNEP Intergovernmental Group on Climate Change (IPCC) notes an increasing trend in extreme events observed during the last 50 years. IPCC further projects it to be very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.

How many more deaths will we tolerate?

About 4am yesterday, a mine in Utah collapsed, trapping six miners 1,500 feet underground, almost three and a half miles from the mine’s entrance. No one knows if they are alive; there’s been no contact since the collapse. Right now, rescuers are trying to drill through the mountainside to reach them. Progress has been slow, […]

The question must be asked

The thought didn't cross my mind until my Minneapolis-based brother suggested it. I had asked him for his thoughts on the collapse, and that is the question he posed.

I was skeptical at first, but after doing a Google search -- and after NBC reported Sunday that National Transportation Safety Board investigators are "looking at everything" including "the weather" -- I think it is a legitimate question to ask.

First, though, why is it an important question to ask? NASA's James Hansen says we are on the verge of turning the earth into "a different planet," thanks to uncontrolled greenhouse-gas emissions. We've seen the Brits and Chinese link recent flooding tragedies driven by extreme weather to climate change.

We are all facing far more extreme heat waves, floods, wildfires, rainstorms, droughts and hurricanes -- yet our infrastructure apparently can't handle the weather we have today, as Hurricane Katrina revealed. If we don't adopt aggressive actions to prevent catastrophic climate change, we need to seriously climate-proof our electric grid, our levees, and our water and sewage systems.

The question remains, do we need to climate-proof our bridges? Does a connection exist between climate change and the collapse of the I-35W bridge? Consider what a meteorologist who worked in the city for years blogged:

Mon Dieu, Il Fait Chaud

European heat-wave length has doubled since 1880, study says The average length of Europe’s sultry heat waves has doubled since 1880, researchers say, from an average of 1.5 days to an average of three days. By analyzing historical records from 54 stations across the continent — then correcting for an upward bias in earlier decades […]

With Safety Like This, Who Needs Danger?

Rescue effort continues in collapsed Utah mine called “safe” by owner The search for survivors continues at a coal mine in central Utah that collapsed early Monday. Four miners escaped the implosion — which was so strong it registered magnitude 3.9 at a nearby seismic station — but six others were trapped about three miles […]