Politics, Events, and the Weather: A Collection
Politics, Events, and the Weather: A Collection
I have ended the series on Sustainability and Climate Change – for now (Sustainability 1, Sustainability 2, Sustainability 3, Sustainability 4). The responses to the series were interesting, and I owe a few notes to people who have written to me.
For some time I have been planning to collect together a summary of (not so) recent events. There are a lot of places that you can find information on weather and climate events, so that will not be my primary focus. My focus will be on some of those other things that are important to climate and climate change. Still, though, it is hard to start without some attention to the weather and climate.
Back in June Jeff Master’s had a blog about 2010-2011 being the host of more extreme weather than any year since 1816. Last week I was at a meeting talking about the Billion Dollar Events and the extreme summer of 2011 (see, Chris Burt, Weather.com, Earth and Sky). An extreme and persisting event is the heat and drought, largely associated with Texas and Oklahoma, but spread throughout the southern parts of the U.S. Here is a graphic from NCDC that is gathering a lot of attention right now.
Figure 1: Each dot represents a day where temperatures met or exceeded 100 degrees F.
The number of days in North Central Texas and the South West corner of Oklahoma where the high has been over 100 degrees F exceeds 70. This comes with extended droughts. The drought stands in contrast to the record floods to the north and east of Texas, in both the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys – and the Ohio.
In this potpourri of a blog, I want to now mention the prototype web site climate.gov. This is a rapidly growing NOAA web site that includes Climate Watch magazine. Here is an article on the summer 2011. climate.gov improves the accessibility to many weather and climatic products that are part of NOAA’s portfolio. It also features original summary articles and access to data and educational material.
So I want to take off in two directions from here. The first is on the politicization of climate. Representative Ralph Hall announced that the Science, Space, and Technology Committee will start an investigation into NOAA and whether or not NOAA is forming an “unauthorized” climate service. This is consistent with: 1) A statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the political attack on climate researchers is, effectively, impeding the scientific process and stalling the advancement of science. (Which the readers of my blogs will know is the goal of the political arguments, hence, a successful strategy.) And 2) Forms a thread back to this entry in 2007, and, well, much longer. (Oreskes video: Merchants of Doubt) This has evolved to the point that Scott Mandia has started a Climate Science Legal Defense Fund to which you are welcome to contribute.
Figure 2: Climate Science Legal Defense Fund
The other direction that I wanted to go was in the spirit of climate “prediction.” A La Nina pattern has resumed in the eastern tropical Pacific; the water is colder than normal. For those who are thinking about climate predictions and the use of climate models in planning, the persistent cold eastern tropical Pacific offers opportunity. Experience suggests that the drought in the southern half of the U.S. will persist, and the risk for floods in the Missouri Valley will be higher than normal. Since we are highly sensitized to the events of summer 2011, and seemingly disinclined to paying for disasters, interest should be high in how to use this information to develop resilience and reduce risk - and cost.
Back to the political thread: Over the years I have written about the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. approach to climate change. The recap is that the Supreme Court affirmed that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. At one point the Obama Administration was inclined to have the EPA to enforce this notion. There was bipartisan opposition, strongly related to whether or not a state or district had jobs related to fossil fuels. In the absence of policy, regulation is often used as a environmental management tool, and in general, this is not desired by anyone. Throughout 2011 there has been push and pull on the EPA. There was a move led by Senators Mitch McConnell and James Inhoff to stop the EPA from enforcing carbon dioxide regulation, and repealing “a 2009 finding by federal scientists that climate change caused by greenhouse gases endangers human health …”. Though this particular effort failed, “Resistance from Democrats is what caused legislation in Congress to collapse during the first two years of the Obama administration even though the president’s party controlled both the House and Senate at the time.” In a complex set of legal actions the Supreme Court ruled against a set of states who were trying to use federal law to curb greenhouse emissions from electrical utilities. As I understand this issue the Obama Administration sided with the utilities against the state efforts at regulation. The net result of these political machinations is that there is one delay after another in the development of EPA rules, and the focus on the EPA as THE point of regulation.
The point I want to make here is that the persistent political resistance achieves the goal of prohibiting the U.S. from developing a unified approach to climate change. Especially with the economic growth remaining stagnant, there is little political motivation in either party to address climate change. There is not foreseeable development of national policy, and the political process is targeted on delaying or destroying any regulation-based approach. There is resistance to funding federal support to promote alternative energy, with the argument that market forces don’t support the need. Economy trumps climate change. And doesn’t this short-focused, tribal politics, ultimately, hurt our economy and competitiveness?
In response to this situation, no political party takes ownership of the climate-change problem. Organizations such as 350.org are holding the political mantle to take action on climate change, with efforts like last weekend’s Moving Planet.
That’s it for now. There is more. Perhaps it is all best summed up by Gary Trudeau in Doonesbury
Figure 3: Doonesbury, September 25, 2011. From Doonesbury.com
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“We have learned from our investigation that White House officials monitored Solyndra’s application and communicated with [Department of Energy] and Office of Management and Budget officials during the course of their review,” the letter says…
“Here’s the bottom line,” [solar industry analyst Peter] Lynch said. “It costs them $6 to make a unit. They’re selling it for $3. In order to be competitive today, they have to sell it for between $1.5 and $2. That is not a viable business plan.”
Other flags have been raised about how the Energy Department pushed the deal forward. The Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News and ABC disclosed that Energy Department officials announced the support for Solyndra even before final marketing and legal reviews were in. To government auditors, that move raised questions about just how fully the department vetted the deal — and assessed its risk to taxpayers — before signing off.
At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.
Evergreen Solar Inc., reportedly received $5.3 million of stimulus cash through a state grant to install 11,000 photovoltaic panels installed at 11 colleges and universities, a recycling facility and an education center in Massachusetts.
The company, once a rock star in the solar industry, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, saying it couldn't compete with Chinese rivals without reorganizing. The company intends to focus on building up its manufacturing facility in China.
SpectraWatt, based in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., is also a solar cell company that was spun out of Intel in 2008. In June 2009, SpectraWatt received a $500,000 grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the stimulus package. SpectraWatt was one of 13 companies to receive the money to help develop ways to improve solar cells without changing current manufacturing processes.
The company filed for bankruptcy last month, saying it could not compete with its Chinese competitors, which receive "considerable government and financial support."
On Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman wrote an editorial for "USA Today" in which he blamed China in part for the failure of U.S. solar energy manufacturers to compete.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/15/despite -stimulus-funding-solyndra-and-4-other-companies-h ave-hit-rock-bottom/#ixzz1ZJdEdTGt
The above are why the politics of AGW are flawed.
Below is how it is flawed.
Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
― Robert A. Heinlein
I don't get the connection between a financial misjudgement and the politics. First, that is politics in general. If you want a list of corruption, start with special interests on both sides. Politicians are all stupid in the sense that no one on earth has the capability to be experts in everything. They vote what their aides and PACs and lobbyists and others tell them to vote. So if you want to get politics away from the market, I don't have a problem with that. Second, don't pick one isolated case and say it shows the ploitics of global warming is flawed. For each case you find, I can find hundreds of cases of where denialist politics is flawed.
Heinlein's statement applies much more to Appeasement Theory than it does to regular science. The big important instances where scientific conventional wisdom was wrong were much more about politics than science, e.g. "world is the center of universe" was enforced by politics (e.g. burning at the stake) more than by scientists. This is much more true today of big oil and the hate brigade of right-wing sycophants. (Don't believe me? a local example: why were Nea's posts hidden so long? Because he spoke against the right wing nut jobs on here.) So, I think the highest authorities that are wrong in this case are the denialsts.
For me, a more correct statement is that science advances on the graves of scientists - i.e. if a scientist believes something, past a certain point in his career, he won't want to change his mind so easily. That is not all scientists and it is not a strict law. However, I think that is why a larger percentage of the few scientists who deny global warming are elderly.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/29coal .html?pagewanted=allLink
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The first, under Bush, is about coal subsidies (and Bush's lack of concern about global warming).
The second is an article from Fox about how the solar industry is doing just fine without subsidies and how subsidies are ruining the industry : "the industry now employees 100,000 people, and that it is actually a net exporter, to the tune of $2 billion a year. As solar companies thrive in a free market, more people are questioning why federal taxpayers should be subsidizing them, as happened in the controversial case of Solyndra."
Imagine if we had actually supported research in solar cells accross the board and encouraged the growth of the industry? There would still be the isolated Solyndrasa but instead of importing them from China, we were making our own.
Climate Change 2011: When Policymakers Fail
http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2011-10-04/ climate-change-2011-when-policymakers-fail
Some of America's top scientists discuss their frustration with the lack of progress on the pressing problem of climate change, and talk about their ideas for what scientists and citizens can do while policymakers fail to act. What does the latest research show on both the climate and the attitude of Americans?
What a CO2 concentration of 1000 ppm would mean for the United States. Thanks to the politicians bought with fossil fuel dollars, we are headed in this direction
As Bill Clinton said at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting last week, "The best thing you could do is make it politically unacceptable to engage in denial. We [the people of the United States] look like a joke. You can’t win the nomination of one of our parties if you accept the science. It’s really tragic. We need the debate between people who are a little bit to the left and a little bit to the right what’s the best way to solve the climate crisis. We can’t have this conversation because we’ve got to deny it?" I couldn't have said it better myself.
This needs to stop, and now...
Oh, no! White House officials looked carefully at documents for a loan they inherited from George W. Bush, one for which they would be partially responsible! Why, how dare they! (Of course, had the Obama administration not checked the loan docs, Fox would be accusing them of lax oversight. But that's to be expected.)
One of the many things the Solyndra bashers neglect to mention is that more private money was lost on the deal than were tax dollars. IOW, it wasn't as if this was a rogue loan our government made all on its own that went bad. Loans go bad all the time; risk is the nature of the game. Another thing those bashers fail to mention: all the other loans given as part of the same program have been unqualified successes. And yet another thing they fail to talk about: green energy jobs are growing where fossil fuel jobs are dying.
To quote Bill Clinton again: "I heard what Senator McConnell said about that one project [Solyndra], but the hard truth is that in America, in spite of his hostility to it, green technology jobs have grown twice as fast as the overall job-generating capacity of the economy in the last eight years, where all job growth has been anemic. You’re going to have a lot of that."
Again, Bill: I couldn't have said it better myself.
As to the Solyndra-directed anima: I didn't see anywhere near this much vitriol spewed at those on Wall Street who lost amounts hundreds of times bigger. Hmmm. Why do you suppose that is?
How much of that heat in Texas and Oklahoma caused the water to evaporate out of soil too fast and where did that moisture go? Could some of it have caused the flooding to the North and East of Texas? Would cooler temperatures there slow down the evaporation process and prevented some flooding? Also about the Co2 issue and the EPA. I always hear how good Co2 is for the trees and plant life from the naysayers but they never want to hear how bad it is for sea life and the bad effects it has on coral reefs and the shell fish. It is as if the Oceans don't exist to them. A pollutant is defined as a waste material that pollutes air, WATER or soil, and is the cause of pollution.
Three factors determine the severity of a pollutant: its chemical nature, its concentration and its persistence.[1] Some pollutants are biodegradable and therefore will not persist in the environment in the long term.
We all know how persistent Co2 is in our atmosphere so we can bank on higher levels in our oceans also for a long time. If it causes harm to the environment then why are we doing it?
Probably too much heat coming from the jumbo-tron in Cowboys Stadium
It's more like Global warming = Texas warming!
Dr. Rood, and others, suggest that a science based PAC be formed to combat the non science based PACs that oppose doing anything short of the status quo. I abhor professional lobbyists, of any kind, but, yes, I believe the time has come to do so. What I still believe will ultimately happen is that corrupt politicians will just get richer off yet another PAC that is willing to feed their campaign coffers. The end result will remain the same. I do, however, respect that the time has come for science to have a voice in helping to avert future disasters. I fully expect that world political turmoil will become the norm as resources are stressed to the extremes. As long as corporations keep convincing our politicians that if the government leaves them alone then they will find the solution to everything and all will prosper. Yet, another corporate lie.
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Arctic Shelves Have Lost Half Their Size in Six Years
Canada’s Arctic ice shelves, formations that date back thousands of years, have been almost halved in size over the last six years, Canadian researchers said on Tuesday.
Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa, who regularly analyze satellite images from the region, also found that a major portion of the ice shelves split in half this summer and other pieces covering an area roughly one and a half times that of Manhattan have broken off since the end of July.
Consistently higher temperatures in Canada’s Arctic, the researchers said, were the main cause of the dramatic decline.
“It’s fascinating to bear witness to this as a scientist but it also saddens me as a general citizen of the planet to see this happen,” said Derek Mueller, a professor at the university’s school of geography and environmental studies. “We’ve seen this on timescale of six years yet these ice shelves are thought to have been in place for thousands of years.”
The ice shelves are as large as they are ancient. Professor Mueller said that they are commonly as thick as a 10 story building is high, although they are sometimes more than twice that size.
While the increased Arctic temperatures decay the ice shelves by creating cracks, they are also undermining the formations by exposing them directly to the waters of the Arctic Ocean. Historically, Professor Mueller said, the shelves were buffered from the sea by a barrier of pack ice the age of which is measured in decades. Now that pack ice has disappeared in many areas, exposing the ice shelf to direct contact with waves causing destructive flexing and heaving of the ice.
In addition to reducing the only environment the supports some kinds of microbial life, the breaking apart of the ice shelves may hinder plans to exploit the warming Arctic as a shipping route and an offshore oil drilling basin.
While the eastern Canadian Arctic has long been plagued by icebergs that separated from glaciers, Professor Mueller said that had not been the case in the west. The pieces now breaking off the ice shelves, however, are now bringing massive icebergs in the Western Arctic Ocean as well.
“This is an area of the world where temperatures are rising very rapidly and the ice shelves are responding,” Professor Mueller said.
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With temperatures soaring, plants such as foxglove and cowslip, which usually flower in the spring, are in full bloom six to eight months early.
Cold nights experienced across the UK in August are thought to have led to the early onset of autumn colours.
This warmer spell now has plants acting like it is spring.
Gardeners at the National Trust's Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex said they are working from a "new rule book" to keep up.
"It is a very unsual year...I've been gardening for 30 years and have never seen anything like this," said Wakehurst Place's head Andy Jackson.
"We are increasingly seeing that plants are not synchronised with what the weather is doing," he added.
In the last year, the UK experienced an incredibly warm winter, followed by a severe drought, then lots of rainfall and a cold snap in the summer, all before this warm spell explained Mr Jackson.
From mid-August, gardeners were seeing trees turning yellow and orange; it is unclear what will happen now with temperatures reaching into the thirties (eighties) in parts of the South, East and the Midlands.
The BBC's meteorologist Liam Dutton explained that the position of the jet stream north of the UK has allowed high pressure to build, bringing in the very warm air from western Europe.
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yonzabam,
It is time to cool the oceans back down to what they were prior to the industrial revolution to solve this problem!
TONY EASTLEY: German scientists say the ice at the North Pole has shrunk to its lowest level since 1972, and possibly the lowest level in 8,000 years.
The team reached its conclusion by analysing satellite data.
But other researchers using different techniques doubt the North Pole is at its lowest level.
One of them is Mark Serreze, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
He's speaking here with Ashley Hall.
MARK SERREZE: There are a number of different sea ice analyses out there. They have their own, we have a different one. We think that ours is a more internally consistent record. We're showing us still at a second lowest, I suspect we're going to stay there.
But whether we're lowest or second lowest does not change the fact that sea ice extent continues to decline in the Arctic, it probably will in the future.
ASHLEY HALL: Is it a death spiral?
MARK SERREZE: Well I've, is it a death spiral? I was quoted somewhere saying, using that term I believe (laughs). I've gotten a little flack here and there.
Maybe I wouldn't use the term 'death spiral' but I would say the Arctic sea ice cover is in deep trouble right now.
ASHLEY HALL: The German researchers also say that it's undoubtedly a result of human induced global warming. Can we say that that's an undoubted fact?
MARK SERREZE: I think we could say that. I think we could say that's an undoubted fact at the moment. Now it's, of course every story's a little more complicated than that. We certainly know that a number of factors have played a role in the decline.
Has the general warming of the Arctic, associated with the growth of greenhouse gases, contributed to the decline? Absolutely. But we also know that natural weather patterns have had a role.
One of the difficulties here is it's very difficult to separate them. For example, think of 2007 - we had the record low, at least by our numbers, and we know that part of the reason we had that was that we had essentially a near perfect weather pattern set up; a very warm and windy pattern in the Arctic that helped to melt a whole bunch of ice.
Now the issue here is that had that same pattern set up 30 years ago it wouldn't have had nearly the same effect that we observed. The reason being now is that the ice cover in spring is so much thinner than it used to be so it can't take a hit, and that thinning is related to the overall warming of the Arctic.
So it's a situation here where we say, well part of this is human induced, part of this is the natural variability in the system. But the two are very much intertwined with each other.
TONY EASTLEY: Mark Serreze, the director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, speaking there with Ashley Hall.
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'This is our coastline changing ... and they won't come back,' says researcher
TORONTO — Canada in just six years has lost nearly 50 percent of the massive ice shelf area that holds back glacial ice from melting into the ocean, scientists report.
Two of Canada's biggest ice shelves diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether. The two are among six that make up Canada's biggest shelves, all located on Ellesmere Island.
The loss is important as a marker of global warming, returning the Canadian Arctic to conditions that date back thousands of years, scientists say.
Floating icebergs that have broken free as a result pose a risk to offshore oil facilities and potentially to shipping lanes. The breaking apart of the ice shelves also reduces the environment that supports microbial life and changes the look of Canada's coastline.
Luke Copland, an associate geography professor at the University of Ottawa, said the Serson Ice Shelf shrank from 79 square miles to two remnant sections five years ago, and was further diminished this past summer.
Serson went from a 16-square-mile floating glacier tongue to 10 square miles, and the second section from 13 square miles to 2 square miles.
In addition, Ward Hunt Ice Shelf's central area disintegrated into drifting ice masses last summer, leaving two separate ice shelves measuring 88 and 29 square miles respectively, reduced from 132 square miles the previous year.
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"It has dramatically broken apart in two separate areas and there's nothing in between now but water," said Copland.
Copland said those two losses are significant, especially since the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf has always been the biggest, the farthest north and the one scientists thought might have been the most stable.
"Since the end of July, pieces equaling one and a half times the size of Manhattan Island have broken off," Copland said in a statement. Copland uses satellite imagery and has conducted field work in the Arctic every May for the past five years.
Co-researcher Derek Mueller, an assistant professor at Carleton University, said the loss this past summer equals up to three billion tons of ice.
"This is our coastline changing," Mueller stated. "These unique and massive geographical features that we consider to be part of the map of Canada are disappearing and they won’t come back."
"Recent (ice shelf) loss has been very rapid, and goes hand-in-hand with the rapid sea ice decline we have seen in this decade and the increasing warmth and extensive melt in the Arctic regions," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, remarking on the research.
Copland said their findings have not yet been peer reviewed since the research is new, but a number of scientists contacted by The Associated Press reviewed the findings, agreeing the loss in volume of ice shelves is significant.
Scambos said the loss of the Arctic shelves is significant because they are old and their rapid loss underscores the severity of the warming trend scientists see now relative to past fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period.
Ice shelves are much thicker than sea ice, which is typically less than a few feet thick and survives up to several years.
Canada has the most extensive ice shelves in the Arctic along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. These floating ice masses are typically 130 feet thick (equivalent to a 10-story building), but can be as much as 330 feet thick. They thickened over time via snow and sea ice accumulation, along with glacier inflow in certain places.
The northern coast of Ellesmere Island contains the last remaining ice shelves in Canada, with an estimated area of 402 square miles, said Mueller.
Between 1906 and 1982, there has been a 90 percent reduction in the areal extent of ice shelves along the entire coastline, according to data published by W.F. Vincent at Quebec's Laval University. The former extensive "Ellesmere Island Ice Sheet" was reduced to six smaller, separate ice shelves: Serson, Petersen, Milne, Ayles, Ward Hunt and Markham.
In 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf whittled almost completely away, as did the Markham Ice Shelf in 2008 and the Serson this year.
"The impact is significant and yet only a piece of the ongoing and accelerating response to warming of the Arctic," said Robert Bindschadler, emeritus scientist at the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Bindschadler said the loss is an indication of another threshold being passed, as well as the likely acceleration of buttressed glaciers able to flow faster into the ocean, which accelerates their contribution to global sea level.
Copland said mean winter temperatures have risen by about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade for the past five to six decades on northern Ellesmere Island.
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Greenland’s glaciers and the Arctic climate
Last summer, a chunk of ice three times the size of Manhattan broke off Petermann Glacier in Greenland and floated out to sea. The calving left miles of newly open water in the deep Petermann Fjord, which had been capped in a thick layer of glacial ice. New research out this summer confirmed that it was likely the largest calving in the region since observations began in 1876. What does this event tell us about climate change in the Arctic?
Scientists say it is clear that Greenland is losing ice. Jason Box, a climatologist at Byrd Polar Research Center, has closely studied the Petermann Glacier, as well as the climate and ice of Greenland as a whole. He said, “Petermann is not the only loser in Greenland. In fact, there is a very clear pattern of glacier area loss all around the island, one that has increased in the past decade.”
But scientists cannot pin the Petermann glacier event—or any specific ice breakup—squarely on climate change. There are too many variables that determine exactly when a glacier calves. Box said, “A single cracking event could conceivably be triggered by a seagull, acting like the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Data compiled by Box show that air temperatures in Greenland have risen sharply in the last twenty-five years. The extent of melting and ice retreat has accordingly increased.
Glaciers and sea ice
What do changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet have to do with declining sea ice in the Arctic? Studies show that the ice on land and ice in the ocean are intimately related. The decline in sea ice could speed up ice loss in Greenland. “It is reasonable to speculate that changes in sea ice duration and concentration in the vicinity of glacier fronts should impact their stability,” said Box. “As the sea ice melts, the ocean can be stirred up more by strong Arctic winds and change fjord water circulation and the sub-marine melt regime.” Winter sea ice also acts as a buttress against glacier ice flow, seasonally slowing the flow speed. An earlier break-up and later freeze-up of sea ice in the fjords may play a role in the ice sheets’ mass balance.
The difference between Greenland’s ice and sea ice is that the sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean does not contribute to sea level rise, just as a melting ice cube in a glass of water will not cause the water level to rise. But the miles of ice that cover Greenland are different: if that ice melts, it would be like adding more ice cubes to that glass of water.
Measurements show that Greenland’s ice does indeed flow into the ocean faster than snow accumulates on the island. This means that sea level is rising—a potential problem for people around the world. “As ice sheets continue to contribute to sea level rise, as expected in climate warming scenarios, the effects will be felt not just in coastal areas,” Box said, “The effects will also be felt globally, where the coastal impacts lead to economic ripple effects.”
For more details and photos of the Petermann Glacier, before and after the 2010 calving, visit Jason Box’s Web site.
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Now, Now, we can agree to disagree, name calling is beneath you CB. Start working on advanced
composite materials for your tunnels. I still like the idea as a means of energy transfer.
Worldwide, an installed capacity of 777 GWe supplied 2998 TWh of hydroelectricity in 2006.[1] This was approximately 20% of the world's electricity, and accounted for about 88% of electricity from renewable sources.
A: Hypocritical Government, claims to promote Green
anything, when lining pockets.
B: More than one case, and the philosophy of carbon
credits to fund third world economies so we feel
less guilty about being successful (Nuts)
Also, if I "believe" in AGW I get NSF grants.
C: Heinlein quote was my Prerogative.
Here are some more.
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
― Robert A. Heinlein
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlein suggests in the book that the Bugs are a good example of Communism being something that humans cannot successfully adhere to, since humans are strongly defined individuals, whereas the Bugs, being a collective, can all contribute to the whole without consideration of individual desire.
Good role models below:
Robert A. Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asimov, Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1944.
I will post articles since most here don't read the papers I post.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/large-dams-can-a ffect-local-climates-alter-rainfall
Concerning a small part of this blog,,,, did anyone read the Inspector Generals recent report on the EPA? Ouch! as many say......
EPA Rules and how they don't follow their own
Be sure to check the official EPA / Inspector general links within this.......
I will not go to the AlGore fabrication of high school science experiments :)
First, a disclaimer: I quit smoking a while back and surfing this blog is my 'smoking break', so my answers are usually crammed into 15 minutes. So apologies if I don't do justice to your comments.
The point, I think, that I was making is that finding one case where the government invested in a company that went bankrupt hardly shows anything about the entire movement. And further, this is equally true of many many right wing Apeasement projects, in fact much more true than for renewable energy.
I, for one, am happy to remove all subsidies from all industries if the choice was between the present system with all the subsidies for oil, coal, etc. and nothing at all.
However, there are many studies about the financial impact of renewable clean energies on all aspects of society. Teh financial benefits of solar, wind, geothermal, etc are much more than jsut the immediate $ difference. Lower medical costs, higher quality of life, reduced infrastructure maintenance costs are all [insert economic term here] costs that are outside of the traditional market dynamic. In other words, if I am in charge of a small community and I have to decide between renewable and coal/gas plants, my decision is not only based on calculations of cost of fuel + cost of plant, it should include all the knock-on costs/benefits that are not easily quantifiable.
When the case is a whole country, the situation is the same but on a larger scale. Here are two links for example:
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As for the Heinlein quotes, I am not sure what saying 'your perogative' means. Fine, quote what you want but your quotes are more accuratly used to make a case for the alarmist camp than the appeasement camp.
For example:
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
― Robert A. Heinlein
Comment: this is what the appeasers do.
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Comment: Truism. E.g.: "point spread is what you expect, the score is what you get." "The beta is what you expect, the price at close is what you get" "Sex is what you expect, marriage is what you get". etc. etc. As the climate changes, the weather is expected to get worse.
“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Comment: Couldn't have said it better myself. This is what the appeasement 'experts' say abotu renewable energy. Get the f/&( out of our way and we'll try to save your tired butt as well.
My take is if you ignore the forces that forced the
glacial age to start and then stop, you have failed to understand history. Much like today when some only look
for the data that supports the hockey stick.
To me, it seemed a good fit.
A few things:
--Suggest you read the timeline of the Solyndra loan. Here you go. There are others, of course; let Google be your friend.
--The highly-polluting fossil fuel industry, which has made nearly $1 trillion in profit over the past decade, nevertheless receives roughly $2 billion in tax subsidies each year from American taxpayers--in effect, a giveaway of "the people's money". Where's the outrage over that?
--The clean/green/alternative energy industry is experiencing "explosive" growth.. Here's a fact you won't hear on Fox: using the larger definition of "green jobs", the clean economy employs about 2.7 million right now--which is several hundred thousand more than the on-its-way-out-and-good-riddance fossil fuel industry does. Uh-oh.
--An analysis by the Center for American Progress showed that clean-energy investments create about 16.7 jobs for every $1 million in spending. In comparison, the fossil fuels industry generates 5.3 jobs per $1 million spent. If you ask me, then, the government should definitely be investing in the clean economy. Which is why they have, and will continue to do so.
--OT: two words of friendly advice: "paragraph breaks". They're easy to do: just hit enter every so often. It'll make those big, monolithic slabs of text easier to read.
--OT II: not that it's any big secret--after all, I use it in some other very public places, and I've actually appended it to several of the homemade graphics I user here--but putting someone's real name in a comment is a pretty douche move. I know that's considered cool over on teenybopper gamer sites where "pwning" is all the rage, but anywhere else, it just makes the person doing it look kinda petty.
OOPs! Looks like I fat fingered that o and i! Correction made!
These are not large dams are they? What they will do is allow more thermal radiation to escape the planet to space thus cooling it because there will be less water vapor in the atmosphere due to lower SSTs. They are the aspirin the planet needs for its high fever! No prescription needed.
State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon tells the Austin American-Statesman says water planning is often based on standards set by the previous record drought of the 1950s, which lasted nearly 10 years. Nielsen-Gammon, who also is a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, says the present drought could be significantly longer-lasting than what has been planned for.
He says that, “sooner or later, there will be a drought that’s worse” than the previous standard-setter.
Forecasters predict dry weather to last long-term beyond the next decade from the La Nina phenomenon returning in 2012 to cool the surface waters of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
Point 1--The link you provide for the timeline seems to forget to mention how Solyndra missed their very first payment and violated the terms of the loan, then claims investors gave them another 75 million dollars at least 67 million of that was from the government. I guess everyone else seen the problems and funding dried up except for the Obama administration. Also it does not mention the insanely low interest rate of less than 1 point on the government money. Try getting that in the private sector. What else would you expect from a far left lunatic site like Climate Progress though. Once again when the NYT can not find anything good to say that is not good for your side.
Point 2--Clean out your ears as I have said many times before I am against subsidies for anyone or anything, fossil or green. Nice try though putting a straw man argument in here. But since I don't believe in subsidies not an effective argument. Sorry, sorry try again
Point 3--I guess you use the term "larger definition of green jobs" because it seems to include bus drivers and sewage workers. I wonder what else they threw in there. By that definition fossil fuel folks could add all truck drivers, all plastic manufacturers, all convenience store employees and such, so that is another miss for you not looking good so far but lets continue. BTW the fossil fuel energy sector is begging for employees the green energy sector not so much and that is a fact.
Point 4--The article is from another far left loon site, don't you always complain when someone uses a far right loon site. Well anyway the article makes a lot of assumptions that are not realistic then uses these made up numbers to prove its point. Example it claims people will have to spend 150 billion dollars less than now on fossil fuels and the government has to spend 150 billion dollars more in green projects per year for the numbers to work in other words complete nonsense. The article is over 2 years old and I don't think people are spending any less on fossil products. Another swing and a miss.
In conclusion more crazy hogwash and nonsense produced by you as fact when nothing could be further from the truth. I will make you a deal I will quit using your real name if you quit trying to twist the actual truth to fit your beliefs or agenda. BTW I hate right wingers and left wingers equally. FWIW you were just pwned Jimmy, ah one last time. Oh and the bottom line is the presidents crew screwed up not once but twice but hey we all do sooner or later. One last thing let the American people use their private money to make investments and use the tax money we pay the government to pay the damn bills, I think we are in debt far enough.
The record has been broken for the highest temperature recorded in October - now at 29.9C (85.8F).
It was set at 14:42 BST in Gravesend, Kent, beating the previous record of 29.4C (85.9F) recorded on 1 October 1985, in the town of March, Cambridge.
1) Try as the radical right might wish to make it seem otherwise, Solyndra is as much a "scandal" as the manufactured "climategate" was. It's nothing but typical partisan politics--very dirty politics--in which certain parties are trying to connect dots that don't exist. The obvious intent is to say that this one green project failed (out of thirty successful ones funded by the same government loan program!), so therefore energy that doesn't come from fossil fuels isn't viable, so therefore we need to stick with high polluting fuels, so therefore climate change isn't happening. Oh, and while we're at it, all the good people in the White House are actually lying corrupt socialists. Or something like that. I'll tell you now: it ain't gonna happen.
2) Oh, I see. Well, to be fair, in reading your many comments here, I've never seen you once say a negative word about either the fossil fuel industry or the billions of dollars it grabs from the taxpayers' hands each year. Mea culpa.
3) Bus drivers? Sewage workers? Not sure where you got that--the mocking and derogatory tone definitely bears the stench of Limbaugh, Beck, or Hannity--but it's like this: anyone who works in green/clean energy is listed as an employee of that industry, just as anyone who works in gray/dirty energy is an employee of that industry. That's why I almost always stick with numbers: they don't lie, as people so often do.
4) Yes, the article was two years old. Since then, there's been even more growth in the clean energy sector, so the numbers are certainly skewed even further in favor of clean/green energy. Thanks for pointing that out.
Bottom line: use my real name if it floats your little boat; like I said, it's not a state secret or anything. Anyway, I have to go now; enjoy your weekend, whether that's here or over there on WeatherBunkum. ;-)
It's even worse--though not surprising--when the major cable news outlets are analysed:
And now the big question: was all this lopsided coverage warranted? Was the failure of the Solyndra loan 10 or 20 or 100 times worse than those other real scandals?
Answer: no.
(Hey, wait a minute: what about that much-vaunted "liberal media bias"? Hello? Hello?!)
Excellent post, overwash12. The responsibility belongs to all of us. We are able to act independently to achieve common goals. Conservation and recycling are what we, as separate individuals, are able to do as well.
Forests across the world dying off as climate warms
Scientists say the future habitability of the Earth may be at stake
WISE RIVER, Mont. — The trees spanning many of the mountainsides of western Montana glow an earthy red, like a broadleaf forest at the beginning of autumn.
But these trees are not supposed to turn red. They are evergreens, falling victim to beetles that used to be controlled in part by bitterly cold winters. As the climate warms, scientists say, that control is no longer happening.
Across millions of acres, the pines of the northern and central Rockies are dying, just one among many types of forests that are showing signs of distress these days.
From the mountainous Southwest deep into Texas, wildfires raced across parched landscapes this summer, burning millions more acres. In Colorado, at least 15 percent of that state’s spectacular aspen forests have gone into decline because of a lack of water.
The devastation extends worldwide. The great euphorbia trees of southern Africa are succumbing to heat and water stress. So are the Atlas cedars of northern Algeria. Fires fed by hot, dry weather are killing enormous stretches of Siberian forest. Eucalyptus trees are succumbing on a large scale to a heat blast in Australia, and the Amazon recently suffered two “once a century” droughts just five years apart, killing many large trees.
Experts are scrambling to understand the situation, and to predict how serious it may become.
Scientists say the future habitability of the Earth might well depend on the answer. For, while a majority of the world’s people now live in cities, they depend more than ever on forests, in a way that few of them understand.
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Trees absorb vehicle emissions
Scientists have figured out — with the precise numbers deduced only recently — that forests have been absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that people are putting into the air by burning fossil fuels and other activities. It is an amount so large that trees are effectively absorbing the emissions from all the world’s cars and trucks.
Without that disposal service, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be rising faster. The gas traps heat from the sun, and human emissions are causing the planet to warm.
Yet the forests have only been able to restrain the increase, not halt it. And some scientists are increasingly worried that as the warming accelerates, trees themselves could become climate-change victims on a massive scale.
“At the same time that we’re recognizing the potential great value of trees and forests in helping us deal with the excess carbon we’re generating, we’re starting to lose forests,” said Thomas W. Swetnam, an expert on forest history at the University of Arizona.
Image: Dry grass, bushes and trees burn on the bank of the Yenisei River in Taiga district
Ilya Naymushin / Reuters
Dry grass, bushes and trees burn on the bank of the Yenisei River in Taiga district, near Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, April 21, 2011.
While some of the forests that died recently are expected to grow back, scientists say others are not, because of climate change.
If forests were to die on a sufficient scale, they would not only stop absorbing carbon dioxide, they might also start to burn up or decay at such a rate that they would spew huge amounts of the gas back into the air — as is already happening in some regions. That, in turn, could speed the warming of the planet, unlocking yet more carbon stored in once-cold places like the Arctic.
'A very different world'
Scientists are not sure how likely this feedback loop is, and they are not eager to find out the hard way.
“It would be a very different world than the world we’re in,” said Christopher B. Field, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.
It is clear that the point of no return has not been reached yet — and it may never be. Despite the troubles of recent years, forests continue to take up a large amount of carbon, with some regions, including the Eastern United States, being especially important as global carbon absorbers.
“I think we have a situation where both the ‘forces of growth’ and the ‘forces of death’ are strengthening, and have been for some time,” said Oliver L. Phillips, a prominent tropical forest researcher with the University of Leeds in England. “The latter are more eye-catching, but the former have in fact been more important so far.”
Scientists acknowledge that their attempts to use computers to project the future of forests are still crude. Some of those forecasts warn that climate change could cause potentially widespread forest death in places like the Amazon, while others show forests remaining robust carbon sponges throughout the 21st century.
“We’re not completely blind, but we’re not in good shape,” said William R. L. Anderegg, a researcher at Stanford University.
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Many scientists say that ensuring the health of the world’s forests requires slowing human emissions of greenhouse gases. Most nations committed to doing so in a global environmental treaty in 1992, yet two decades of negotiations have yielded scant progress.
Wealthy countries to pay?
In the near term, experts say, more modest steps could be taken to protect forests. One promising plan calls for wealthy countries to pay those in the tropics to halt the destruction of their immense forests for agriculture and logging.
But now even that plan is at risk, for lack of money. Other strategies, like thinning overgrown forests in the American West to make them more resistant to fire and insect damage, are also going begging in straitened times. With growing economic problems and a Congress skeptical of both climate science and new spending, chances for additional funding appear remote.
So, even as potential solutions to forest problems languish, signs of trouble build.
In the 1990s, many of the white spruce trees of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula were wiped out by beetles. For more than a decade, other beetle varieties have been destroying trees across millions of acres of western North America. Red-hued mountainsides have become a familiar sight in a half-dozen states, including Montana and Colorado, as well as British Columbia in Canada.
Researchers refer to events like these as forest die-offs, and they have begun to document what appears to be a rising pattern of them around the world. Only some have been directly linked to global warming by scientific studies; many have yet to be analyzed in detail. Yet it is clear that hotter weather, of the sort that
Link
EDITORIAL
Published Sep 28, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated Sep 27, 2011)
In the name of “green energy,” the Obama administration is using taxpayer money to subsidize a New Hampshire wind farm that is a subsidiary of a hugely profitable company.
New Hampshire’s largest wind farm, the Granite Reliable Power project under construction in Coos County, is jointly owned by BAIF Granite Holdings, LLC and Freshnet Wind Energy, LLC. BAIF owns 75 percent of Granite Reliable. BAIF Granite Holdings was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, which is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York.
That company, which runs clean energy operations around the world, has deep pockets. It reported net income of $454 million in 2009 and $3.2 billion in 2010. Brookfield Renewable Power financed the creation of BAIF Granite Holdings from its Brookfield Americas Infrastructure fund, which was reported in February to have $2.7 billion in assets. With that kind of backing, it is curious that the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would guarantee up to 80 percent of a $168.9 million loan for the Granite Reliable wind farm project last week.
Why would a company created by a $3.2 billion company and backed by a $2.7 billion private fund need federal loan guarantees? That would be an important question at any time, but it is more pertinent after the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar-panel maker that got a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration last year.
Granite Reliable’s wind farm is not proven, and Granite Reliable is a limited liability company, which provides broad investor protection if the company goes down. If the wind farm flops, and investors cut their losses, the taxpayers stand to lose $135 million. What is the justification for risking $135 million in public money, especially on a company with access to so much private cash? Apparently, the justification is that Obama likes “green power” and wants to associate himself with it.
With the country running deficits as far as the eye can see, the Obama administration opts to spend money we don’t have to subsidize a risky venture undertaken by the subsidiary of a huge, profitable company. If that doesn’t perfectly illustrate what is wrong with crony capitalism in general and the Obama administration’s practice of it in particular, we don’t know what would.
I find it a shame when tax dollars are used to give loans to any company. Those that are already profitable should certainly not need any tax dollar based loans. Yet, these are loans, as opposed to all of the tax breaks, subsidies and grants that are given to even more profitable companies. Oil and coal companies. Companies that are making record profits and sitting on record amounts of cash such as Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, Shell and many other oil based companies. GE pays no income taxes, in the U.S., and GE Capital received billions in TARP funds. Yet you complain about a 80% of a $168.9 million dollar loan guarantee to a green energy company? What are your priorities focused on?
Your first point is now to not even debate the actual facts but just scream right wing conspiracy. I laid out actual facts you just some political garbage.
I have said before if we can do it cleaner and cost effective I'm all for it. Also once again NO TAX BREAKS, NO SUBSIDIES, NO NOTHING FROM THE GOVERNMENT. sink or swim on your own, is that clear enough for you.
Third the info comes from paragraph 5 of your Brookings article. Did you actually read it? I don't like anything having to do with politics as it is so corrupt on both sides of the aisle. All federal politicians are bought and paid for by special interest. Nice try though to throw in some of the radical rightwing nonsense boys
Point 4 This is another made up fact by you. Can you provide one link to back up your point? Why don't you just go check help wanted ads in North Dakota and see they can not find enough workers In the oil sector. Can you help me find all these help wanted postings for the green energy sector?
You see sir I can provide actual facts for any position I have you on the other hand can not. This is when you always fall back on a foolish political argument. When the facts are not on your side you attack the person with the facts and try labeling them as something they are not.
I find it painful to watch such things take place between the radical right and the radical left such as yourself. I am a person who does not believe in DEMOCRATS or REPUBLICANS. These people are not out to solve problems but to use problems to their advantage. You see Jimmy you are part of the problem for the rest of us and you don't even realize it and that is sad.
BTW I am not sure what weather bunker or as you say weather bunkum has to do with this you sound like a bitter, pathetic, lonely, I never got mine and the world passed me by sort of person. That is truly sad.
"The lone man holding up his hand at the EPA saying wait a minute was Alan Carlin, who was excoriated for doing so."
Yup, gotta wonder, eh ?
tic...tic...tic...tic...
:)
"The new report, released today, examines only federal requirements for EPA's "technical support document" and not the accuracy of the scientific studies included within it. But its conclusions have nevertheless reinvigorated GOP criticism of EPA's endangerment finding, which enabled the agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act."
and
"But EPA and OMB officials say the document did not qualify as highly influential, since it merely compiled outside scientific assessments that had already undergone peer review. In their view, the assessment was a "reader-friendly" version of the underlying science."
and
"In our opinion, the [technical support document] met the definition of a scientific assessment in that it evaluated a body of scientific knowledge and synthesized multiple factual inputs," they wrote. "While we agree that the primary information EPA relied upon were scientific assessments, these assessments were voluminous and numerous.""
and
"Environmentalists and climate scientists said today that the IG had missed the point completely: that the technical support document was not a new scientific assessment with new findings deserving of extra layers of review, but a summary of the established scientific findings that have already been thoroughly vetted."
"The key difference here was that they didn't create new science," said Francesca Grifo, a scientist who heads the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "And typically, when you call something a highly influential scientific assessment, you actually added some other data, or used grey literature, or did something that hadn't already been fully reviewed."
"And they didn't in this case. Everything they used had been multiply peer-reviewed," she added."
Grifo noted that OMB told the IG that EPA had used its guidance correctly when deciding how much review to conduct prior to issuing the endangerment finding. The IG report, which was requested by Inhofe, amounts to "$300,000 that was spent on bureaucratic nonsense," she said.
"There is nothing in this report that would give any reason to think that another procedure would add value or find anything different," said David Doniger, policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center."
and
"Like Grifo, Doniger said that the "highly influential scientific assessments" in the case were actually the thousands of scientific reports and publications the TSD relied on, not the TSD itself. And those had all been thoroughly reviewed, he said, unlike many of the dissenting scholars that Inhofe relies on."
Ossqss, these quotes are from the New York Times article cited in the article you link. ... In other words, the EPA was not doing the science but, compiling the scientific evidence that was already peer reviewed. You left out a considerable amount of the article. ... Why are you trying to game this?
Oh, dear. I see I've once again attempted to raise the level of discourse by sticking to verifiable facts, and you've responded--again--with a nonsensical rant chock-full of spittle-flecked ad hominems. "Bitter, pathetic, lonely"? Is that sort of third-grade name-calling necessary? Does it help drive the debate? Do you believe it somehow bolsters your opinions?
As I've had to do before when you became overheated, I'll leave you be for a while. Take some time to cool down; play some video games; go to some high school sites and shout "PWNED!!!!!!!" to your heart's content. Then, when you're ready to rejoin the adult discussion, let me know. I'll be waiting. Until then...
Here's how it works...
1) Expose the sacrifices people make to clean up pollution, support green energy, adapt to a changing world, change their lifestyle, and so on. After seeing the sacrifices, deniers will probably still deny, but they will be unable to deny the sacrifices that people are making. They may even feel a tinge of guilt. Sacrifices speak louder than most other things in life, misguided or not.
2) Label deniers as irresponsible, self-interested, misguided, corrupt, unmanly, undesired, and so on. Make it a point to focus on their inability to act proactively. They're weak. They're short-sighted. They're not responsible adults. Explain how the world is made worse by their insolent inaction.
3) Spend lots of money. Money, like sacrifice, makes something REAL. People cannot deny that money exists. When something becomes real enough, it gains momentum. Deniers will become exhausted.
4) Policy. Have rules. Rules don't have an attitude or talk at you. People respond less hostilely to them because there's an inherent distrust of people, but rules are different because they're not people. Policy represents democracy, at best, too. Generally, policy is technical and not easy to understand either.
5) Speak through committees and democracy whenever possible. People are more likely to trust this.
Addressing AGW, above all, has to be seen as a manly thing to do. A responsible thing. A thing that will make you more desirable to the opposite sex. Something that's good for our country.
Combating AGW has to be an American thing. Not a European thing or a Chinese thing.
All one needs to do is look for examples.
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