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Hauntingly Familiar
Groundbreaking climate report inspires predictable political responses World reaction to yesterday’s U.K. report linking climate change with possible economic ruin has been swift — and painfully predictable. While British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his likely successor Gordon Brown hailed the findings, Kyoto-resisters Australia and the U.S. offered more lukewarm responses. Australian Prime Minister John […]
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It’s a poor indicator of progress on global warming
A recent news article about the Stern Report contained the following gem from a Bush administration spokeswoman:
The statement from spokeswoman Kristen Hellmer said the United States is "well on track to meet the president's goal to reduce greenhouse gas intensity of our economy 18 percent by 2012."
This statement makes it sound like the Bush administration is taking on the problem of climate change head-on, with an aggressive program to reduce emissions.
But it ain't so.
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‘One record year is not global warming’–Luckily, there are plenty more years to consider
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: So 2005 was a record year. Records are set all the time. One really warm year is not global warming.
Answer: This is actually not an unreasonable point -- single years taken by themselves can not establish or refute a trend. So 2005 being the hottest globally averaged temperature on record is not convincing. Then how about:
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It ain’t a Senate website
I listened with great interest to the audio recording of the SEJ panel discussion described in David Roberts' recent blog post.
Much of the argument there can be distilled down to one simple question:
Where can I find credible answers to scientific questions about climate change?
Here's the scientific community's answer: look to the peer-reviewed scientific literature. A strong consensus there is the closest thing we have to well-founded knowledge, and it is entitled to substantial deference in policy debates. And if a reporter wants to write about what the "scientific community" thinks, this consensus is what they should report.
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‘The scientists aren’t even sure’ — No scientist ever is
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: Even the scientists don't know that the climate is changing more than normal and if it's our fault or not. If you read what they write it is full of "probably," "likely," "evidence of" and all kinds of qualifiers. If they don't know for sure, why should we worry yet?
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‘One hundred years is not enough’–Yes it is
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: One hundred and some years of global surface temperatures is not long enough to draw any conclusions from or worry about anyway.
Answer: The reliable instrumental record only goes back 150 years in the CRU analysis, 125 in the NASA analysis. This is a simple fact that we are stuck with. 2005 was the warmest year recorded in that period according to NASA, a very close second according to CRU. Because of this limit, it is not enough to say today that these are the warmest years since 150 years ago, rather one should say 'at least':
1998 and 2005 are the warmest two years in at least the last 150.
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An interview on planning for climate change
An interview I recently did has been published in the newsletter of Caisse des Depots, a state-owned financial institution that performs public-interest missions on behalf of the French government. Also quoted in the interview is Patrick Criqui, Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Department of the Grenoble LEPII. You can get the full newsletter here (PDF). It's all about the problems posed by the long timescale climate change operates on, and is definitely worth reading.
Here is the interview:
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‘Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect’ — No, it isn’t
(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)
Objection: The apparent rise of global average temperatures is actually an illusion due to the urbanization of land around weather stations, the Urban Heat Island effect.
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Hard-knock New England city welcomes region’s largest solar installation
Brockton, Mass., is championing solar power. Photos: SCHOTT Solar This city was once the shoemaking capital of the Northeast, and over the years it was home to boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, earning it the nickname “City of Champions.” Today, however, Brockton, Mass., holds the dubious honor of being one of the region’s trash […]
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Crazed, Greedy Drilling in Texas? You Don’t Say
Natural-gas drilling booms in Fort Worth Forth Worth, Texas, lies atop a huge natural-gas field, and thus is at the center of the biggest urban drilling boom in the U.S. today. The city has leased more than 2,400 acres of public land for natural-gas development; over 600 wells have cropped up in the last year […]