blogosphere

Announcing a new blog from veteran coalfield journalist Ken Ward

I dare say no one knows more about coal mining and its impact on communities, economies, industries, the environment, and the climate than Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward. He's been on the front lines for years, filing his award-winning reports from West Virginia and the coalfield region.

Now he's launched a new blog: Coal Tattoo. Bookmark it.

Here's a clip from his first post:

What will shift the public's attitudes on climate change?

The greenosphere is in a frenzy about new polls showing that Americans neither understand nor particularly care about climate change -- one from Rasmussen, another from Pew. A few semi-coherent thoughts:

Lots of folks seem to be having exactly the wrong reaction to this, which is that enviros need to try even harder to "raise awareness" of climate change and "educate the public" on climate science. Ugh.

The public is already "aware" of climate change. It's friggin' everywhere. It gets as much as or more publicity than virtually any other sociopolitical problem outside the economic downturn. Pop stars are writing songs about it fer chrissake. Awareness: check.

As for educating the public on the science, guess what? The public's kinda ignorant about science. Have you seen the polls on evolution, or ghosts, or aliens, or telepathy? They're horrifying. There's a lot to know these days, and most people don't know most of it. Changing that is impossible a long-term undertaking we don't have time to wait on.

So, if people are already "aware," and a renaissance of widespread scientific literacy is unlikely in the next few years, what direction to take from these polls?

You have to start with plausible answers for why so many people refuse to believe in or prioritize climate change.

Media Matters commenter provides one of the greatest snarks at the denier wingnut mentality

Craig C. Clarke made one of the all-time great comments about delayers and deniers over at Media Matters:

The energy impact of web searches is very low

Some myths are hard to kill. The Times Online "reports":

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research ...

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power," said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon.

The overhyping of the internet's energy use goes back a decade, pushed by two right-wing deniers, Mark Mills and Peter Huber. They were actually using their easily-refuted analysis to argue against climate restrictions -- I kid you not. In this 1999 press release [PDF] from the laughably-named denier group, the "Greening Earth Society," Mills says:

While many environmentalists want to substantially reduce coal use in making electricity, there is no chance of meeting future economically-driven and Internet-accelerated electric demand without retaining and expanding the coal component.

I ended up writing a major report debunking this myth and then testifying in front of the Senate Commerce committee [PDF] (i.e. John McCain) and the House [PDF] on the subject. Jon Koomey and others at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) did even more work debunking this nonsense (click here for everything you could possibly want to know on the subject).

There are actually two mistakes in the Harvard calculation. The first, which was the focus of my research, is the big picture issue. What is the net energy consumed by the internet? I argue the internet is a net energy saver -- and a big one -- since it increases efficiency (especially in things like the supply chain) and dematerialization (it uses less energy to research online than in person). The fact that U.S. energy intensity (energy consumed per dollar of GDP) began dropping sharply in the mid-1990s is but one piece of evidence that internet- and IT-driven growth is less energy intensive.

I, for instance, am able to work at home and telecommute thanks to the Internet and a broadband connection. That saves the energy consumed in commuting and a considerable amount of net building energy: Most people's homes are an underutilized asset, which consume a great deal of energy whether or not they are there.

The other mistake just involves the more narrow question of how much energy is consumed by Googling. Wissner-Gross says it is 7g of CO2 per search. My LBNL colleagues say that is way too high, and Google itself has rebutted that analysis with their own, which I reprint here:

Arianna Huffington clarifies editorial policy around climate skepticism

The other day Andrew Dessler and I wrote about a piece of climate skeptic hoo-ha that somehow got published on Huffington Post. There was nothing particularly notable about the piece itself -- just the usual recycled confusions and distortions -- but it was somewhat remarkable that it appeared on a progressive news site whose proprietor has strongly criticized mainstream journalism for its pathological and misleading "balance" even on settled issues of fact.

Now, via email, Arianna Huffington clarifies:

Harold Ambler reached out to me about posting a critical piece on Al Gore and the environment. We are always open to posts that present opinions contrary to HuffPost's editorial view -- and have welcomed many conservative voices, such as David Frum, Tony Blankley, Michael Smerconish, Bob Barr, Joe Scarborough, Jim Talent, etc., to the site. We have featured also countless posts from the leading lights of the Green movement, including Robert Redford, Laurie David, Carl Pope, Van Jones, David Roberts, and many others -- and I myself have written extensively about the global warming crisis, and have been highly critical of those who refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence.

When Ambler sent his post, I forwarded it to one of our associate blog editors to evaluate, not having read it. I get literally hundreds of posts a week submitted like this and obviously can't read them all -- which is why we have an editorial process in place. The associate blog editor published the post. It was an error in judgment. I would not have posted it. Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues.

This, shall we say, casts a new light on a comment that Ambler left on our piece over on HuffPo:

Again, my full response will be a couple of weeks from now. In the meantime, there is a second factual error in your piece regarding how I got posted on HuffPo. My only contact with the site prior to being published was Arianna Huffington herself, who read my piece, accepted it, and directed her staff to post it.

Sure she did, Harold.

Anyway, kudos to Huffington for taking responsibility and clarifying her site's editorial approach.

Now we can all get on with our lives ... until the next skeptic fruitcake resurrects the same zombie lies on some other unsuspecting site. Then we start all over again. It never gets old!

'Anti-science syndrome' plagues the right-wing as well as blogosphere

Note: Watts Up With That, one of the web's most anti-scientific blogs, is a finalist for the Weblog award "Best Science Blog." Even more farcically, early voting suggests Watts has a chance of winning (see here). Since the fine science blog Pharyngula is doing well in the voting, I'd now suggest voting for it.

 

In this post I'm going to present the general diagnosis for "anti-science syndrome" (ASS). Like most syndromes, ASS is a collection of symptoms that individually may not be serious, but taken together can be quite dangerous -- at least it can be dangerous to the health and well-being of humanity if enough people actually believe the victims.

One tell-tale symptom of ASS is that a website or a writer focuses their climate attacks on non-scientists. If that non-scientist is Al Gore, this symptom alone may be definitive.

The other key symptoms involve the repetition of long-debunked denier talking points, commonly without links to supporting material. Such repetition, which can border on the pathological, is a clear warning sign.

Scientists who kept restating and republishing things that had been widely debunked in the scientific literature for many, many years would quickly be diagnosed with ASS. Such people on the web are apparently heroes -- at least to the right wing and/or easily duped.

If you suspect someone of ASS, look for the repeated use of the following phrases:

Coal front group sets up ‘Blogger Brigade’ to fight reality

Originally posted at the Wonk Room. The coal industry is attempting to organize bloggers to promote their false “clean coal” propaganda. The Reality Coalition, a group of national environmental organizations, have begun airing the message that “There’s no such thing as clean coal,” to counter the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by coal-powered corporations […]

Editing is really a good thing for the blogosphere

There is a kerfuffle in the blogosphere because Matt Yglesias’ employer forced a post into the blog Matt writes that disclaims something Matt said about a group called Third Way. And there are good reasons for raised eyebrows. It’s the wrong way to make such a disclaimer. The Center for American Progress could have asked […]

Hansen and Danny Bloom inspire vicious hate speech on web

I interviewed author Mark Bowen a year ago about James Hansen, the great climatologist, with whom Bowen wrote the book Censoring Science. The discussion turned to the intensity of reaction against Hansen from those who refuse to accept the reality of global warming. Bowen mentioned that Hansen has gotten some death threats, though he considered […]