by James Hansen, September 13, 2013
The New Yorker just published (16 September issue) an excellent article "The President and the Pipeline" on Tom Steyer and the campaign to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Unfortunately, advocates for the Canadian government's position ("industry officials") were able to slip in a statement that was not fact checked with me "They note that Hansen's dire warning about Canada's unconventional oil deposits was based on the assumption that every ounce of oil in the sands would be burned.
Only a small fraction of the total estimated reserves is recoverable, and doing so will take decades." First, note that the carbon from fossil fuel burning will stay in the climate system for more than 100,000 years before it is buried on the ocean floor as carbonates. So whether it takes a few decades (or even a few centuries) to extract the fuel is pretty irrelevant -- we would be screwing up the planet for our children, grandchildren and, as Native Americans say, the seventh generation.
Second, what I said is that oil in the total tar sands resource is more than double all oil that has been burned in the history of humankind, i.e., less than half of the tar sands is sufficient to match all oil burned so far. (And note that non-tar sands oil is being burned to extract the tar sands goop and process it to make oil, and forests above the tar sands are being destroyed, making the tar sandsimpact even greater.) If we build big pipeline infrastructure, you can be sure that technology developments will allow more and more to be extracted.
There is another error in the New Yorker article, an explanation of the origin of the name of Bill McKibben's organization 350.org: "The name is a nod to Hansen's calculation that once the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeds three hundred and fifty parts per million, climate change could become uncontainable."
In reality, 350 ppm is the CO2 level that, other things being unchanged, would restore Earth's energy balance.
So 350 ppm is an estimate of the CO2 level needed to stabilize global temperature.
Temperature is now near the upper end of its range during the Holocene, the interglacial period now more than 10,000 years long, which is the climate that civilization is adapted to. It may be necessary to go somewhat lower than 350 ppm to avoid multi-meter sea level rise, so 350 ppm is only an initial estimate for a long-term target. We will know better by the time we get CO2 turned around heading toward 350 ppm. It's unlikely we will want to go back all the way to pre-industrial 280 ppm, because there are other significant climate forcings. These include human-made change of the planet's surface albedo and natural forcings, which are providing a slight push toward global cooling.
Yet the New Yorker's "climate change could become uncontainable," unfortunately, is not science fiction. If we are so foolish as to burn all fossil fuels, including all coal and unconventional fuels, that result is nearly certain. Our paper discussing that topic, "Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide," by Hansen, Sato, Russell and Kharecha, is finally being published next week in the Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A PDF of the article will be freely available from my web site (www.columbia.edu/~jeh1) or from the journal's web site.
The attached note ("Europe Standing Tall Against a Rogue State") was written to accompany "Tar Sands Debacle and the Hama-Hama-Hama Oil and Gas Corporation," which I hope to finish soon. I include the note now because the situation in Europe is fluid. The Canadian government (not representative of Canada, as I note) is trying to work a backroom deal to avoid an open vote on unconventional fossil fuels.
Does anybody have a guess as to why the Canadian Prime Minister jumped at the chance to line up Canada in favor of Obama's plan to bomb Syria?
I'm sorry to have been so slow in writing -- I have been snowed under working on several things at the same time, including finding support for a new organization -- but I hope to catch up soon.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130913_TarSands+NewYorker.pdf
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Summer 2013 weather extremes tied to extraordinarily unusual polar jet stream
by Steve Tracton, The Washington Post, September 11, 2013
For at least the past one or two decades the adjective extreme has increasingly become used in describing unusual weather. It’s virtually impossible now to escape news of extreme drought, excessive rainfall and floods, record breaking heat waves, cool spells and severe weather outbreaks, etc. which seem to recur year after year around the Northern Hemisphere. This summer was no different except that the behavior and configuration of the polar jet stream, the river of high altitude winds marking the divide between warm and cool air, were rare and mind-boggling.
Instead of meandering as a single stream like it normally does, it transformed into a “dual” jet stream configuration, sometimes transitioning from this dual setup back into a single more coherent stream, back and forth.
The rarity of dual polar jets was highlighted by Professor John Nielsen-Gammon (Texas A&M University) in an article in Popular Mechanics. He pointed out they are something one might see once per decade. From an independent assessment myself, it appears that there are no other polar jet examples comparable to this summer at least as far back as 2000 (the furthest back I’ve looked).
Mostly, the perplexing behavior of the polar jet has been described in befuddling terminology such as weird, mangled, and wobbly. Some have described the jet in a state of disarray, not playing by the so-called rules. Jeff Masters said that in his 30 years doing meteorology, the jet stream has been doing things he’s not seen before.
What follows is a rather technical discussion of how this jet stream pattern evolved and some of the weather characteristics associated with it. Although some terms may not be familiar, the included parenthetical notes and illustrations should help guide you along.
As a general overview I’ve subjectively identified three periods I call Regime 1, 2, and 3. To illustrate associated weather characteristics, I present 500-mb zonal wind (representative of upper level jet stream) anomalies and 850-mb temperature (low-level temperature) regimes over the June–July–August (JJA) meteorological summer. In these time vs. latitude (30–90 N) charts, color coded values are daily means longitudinally averaged (0–360 degrees) at each latitude. Jet streams coincide with the green to red colorization. The three regimes are separated by notably shorter periods of transition from one regime to the next.
Regime 1 (R1) appeared following a regime change at the end of May (not shown) to a dual polar jet which persisted through most of June. Around the beginning of July, R1 transitioned to a single jet mode which characterized Regime 2 (R2). During the third week in July, there was a rapid change to another dual jet configuration in Regime 3 (R3), which subsequently transitioned to a single jet during the middle of August.
Time evolution of daily means vs. latitude of longitudinally averaged (0–360 longitude) 500-mb zonal wind anomalies (left) and 850-mb temperature (right). Green to red correspond to jets; light yellow to red correspond to anomalous warmth.
It’s important to add that changes in the zonal wind at any given latitude conform directly (via basic meteorological principles, “thermal wind”) to the largest north-south and south-north differences (gradient) in the lower level temperature field (winds adjust to temperature changes, not vice versa, except in the Tropics).
Most significantly, each regime reflects notably different background fields in the three-dimensional wind and temperature structure of the atmosphere from the mid-latitudes to the North Pole (NP). Although there is considerable variability within a given regime, each appears to have predominant signatures in observed weather events that differ from those characterizing the other regimes. Some examples appear deeper down.
To further describe aspects of regime transition, I’ll focus on that from R2 to R3. See first the time/lat chart for the period July 1 to August 9.
The major difference between R2 and R3 zonal wind anomalies is obvious. Specifically, R2 is characterized by a single maximum in zonal wind speed (single polar jet) centered between 55 and 65 N. Following a relatively short period of transition, two maxima (dual jets) are evident (in R3), the strongest immediately surrounding the NP (80–90 N), while the second is seen initially far to the south but migrating slowly towards mid-latitudes.
The zonal wind profiles are directly tied to evolution of the lower level temperature field. R2 is characterized by very warm weather immediately surrounding the NP (80–90 N), cool in the 60–75 N latitudinal band, and warm centered between 45 and 55 N.
After the relatively short transition period, R3 is virtually a mirror image with very cold around NP, warmth between 65 and 75 N, and cool further south. Close inspection, if you are so inclined (presuming you have very good eyesight), will reveal that zonal wind speed maxima occur precisely where temperature decreases most rapidly from S–N, while minima are found where temperature increases most rapidly from N–S.
So what does all this have to do with extreme weather events?
Almost invariably extreme summer weather of late is discussed in context of anomalies (differences from average) in the polar jet. The anomalies are commonly attributed directly or indirectly to global warming (aka climate change) as manifest in warming occurring faster in the Arctic than latitudes further south (Arctic amplification). Temperatures, therefore, decrease less rapidly than the climatological norm, and the zonal component of the winds at jet levels adjust by weakening relative to “normal.” The response generally speaking is for atmospheric waves to amplify in their meridional (N–S) extent and lead to more frequent occurrences of unusually high amplitude ridges (and/or blocking highs) and troughs (and/or cut-off lows) along with the respective weather associated with these systems. In combination with slowing progression of weather systems, this translates to enhancing prospects for persistent spells of extreme heat, and extended periods of unusually cool and/or wet conditions.
As illustrated in the figures above, the N–S differential heating adjustments in the zonal wind component are considerably more complex with regard to details in the spatial and temporal variability within as well as between regimes. In particular, note variability in details over time and latitude in the blue areas where zonal winds are least strong and thus favorable for high amplitude circulations and possible extreme weather.
Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, it is possible to discern the principle unique expression of each regime. By way of example, this figure displays those for R2 and R3.
The distinct differences between the two regimes are abundantly clear (the 500-mb height anomalies are closely related to the low level temperatures). Note especially the dramatic transition from relatively cool conditions to extreme warmth over Alaska (influence of high amplitude ridge), the cooling trough in R3 over the Northeast U.S., and dominantly warm (R2) to dominantly cool (R3) over extreme northern Europe.
The figures below exemplify regional differences corresponding to heavy rainfall events (precipitable water – total atmospheric water content above location – is used as an approximation for relative differences in precipitation).
The transition form R2 to R3 brings in flooding rains to Western Europe.
Especially interesting for the U.S. are alternating regions of dominantly dry and dominantly wet conditions in the sequence of regimes transitions over the course of the entire summer, shown below.
Finally, there is no basis at this time (if ever) to determine whether the transitions to and from regimes with dual polar jets made this summer any more or less unusual in occurrences of extreme weather events than over the past 10–15 years, which have been presumed to be less complicated by dual jets.
Scientists tend to believe the increase in extreme weather is tied somehow to the diminishing Arctic ice cover and perhaps more rapid melting of snow cover over Siberia. The “somehow,” especially when coupled to interactions with other plausible and not yet identified factors, remains an open question. No individual or set of observational studies to date and no existing models and modeling strategies are adequate for garnering some insights when dealing with details in regional domains. This is especially true when dual polar jets are added to the mix of complexities. As far as I know, there has not even been a single investigation of the why’s and wherefore’s of this aspect of the problem (or even whether it has been given much thought).
Steve Tracton retired from U.S. Government employment after 34 years of service. His career began immediately after receiving a Ph.D. in Meteorology from MIT as an Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School (1972-1975). Thereafter, Steve was a research scientist for 31 years at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). A basic theme of his career at NCEP was assessment of data, analysis, and forecast systems with emphasis on physical insight, applications to forecast problems, and realistic appreciation of capabilities and limitations. Perhaps most notably Steve has been recognized nationally and internationally as a principal agent and advocate in development, application, and use of operational ensemble prediction systems and strategies for dealing with forecast uncertainty. From 2002-2006, Steve was a Program Officer for Marine Meteorology at the Office of Naval Research (ONR). He’s currently the chairman of the D.C. Chapter of the American Meteorological Society.
DC judge denies another effort to derail Michael Mann's defamation lawsuit
September 13, 2013
Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Moving forward to the discovery stage of Michael Mann's defamation lawsuit against the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute was expedited when District of Columbia Superior Court judge Weisberg on September 12 denied yet another motion by the defendants that would have created a procedural delay. If the defendants' are hoping that having a new judge on the case will bring a very different viewpoint, his first procedural ruling doesn't support it.
Text of the judge's ruling: Order Denying Defendants' Joint Motion for Interlocutory Certification of the Court's July 19, 2013 Orders under D.C. Code § 11-721
Excerpt:
Although this case undoubtedly involves complex and important issues at the intersection of the First Amendment and the common law of defamation as applied to public figures, there is not "a substantial ground for a difference of opinion" on the controlling questions of law. The [Court's July 19, 2013, order denying defendants' motion to dismiss] represents an application of relatively settled law to the facts as articulated in the complaint, and a conclusion that plaintiff has alleged enough to move his case forward to the discovery stage.
Judge Weisberg also prodded the case along with this footnote:
3 As an aside, the court observes that the litigation of this matter will be as expensive as the parties choose to make it. It appears that most of the relevant facts are well known. If the parties can get through the discovery stage with a minimum of acrimony, they should be able to advance the case to the summary judgment phase in relatively short order.
So, let's see what the discovery stage brings out.
Earlier CSW posts on this case:
Scientist Michael Mann named in top 10 influential thinkers by Bloomberg
Sorry, can't copy from the site, here's the link: http://www.bloomberg.com/infographics/2013-09-04/ten-most-influential-thinkers.html
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Justin Gillis, NYT: A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some
Human Hands in a Changing Climate: The Times's Justin Gillis talks about what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release in their report later this month.
by Justin Gillis, "By Degrees," The New York Times, September 9, 2013
In one case, we have a lot of mainstream science that says if human society keeps burning fossil fuels with abandon, considerable land ice could melt and the ocean could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. We have some outlier science that says the problem could be quite a bit worse than that, with a maximum rise exceeding five feet.
The drafters of the report went with the lower numbers, choosing to treat the outlier science as not very credible.
In the second case, we have mainstream science that says if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubles, which is well on its way to happening, the long-term rise in the temperature of the earth will be at least 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but more likely above 5 degrees. We have outlier science that says the rise could come in well below 3 degrees.
In this case, the drafters of the report lowered the bottom end in a range of temperatures for how much the earth could warm, treating the outlier science as credible.
Climate change skeptics often disparage these periodic reports from the United Nations, claiming that the panel writing them routinely stretches the boundaries of scientific evidence to make the problem look as dire as possible. So it is interesting to see that in these two important cases, the panel seems to be bending over backward to be scientifically conservative.
Is it right to throw out bleeding-edge science in the one case while keeping it in the other? That is hard to judge for anybody who is not a working climate scientist. After all, we pay them for their expertise, just as we pay doctors to advise us if we are diagnosed with cancer. And we are talking about two distinct issues here, each with its own specialized body of research.
The group making these decisions is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a worldwide committee of several hundred scientists knowledgeable in the complex field of climatology. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with Al Gore, for helping to alert the public to the risks that are being run with the unchecked combustion of fossil fuels.
The group’s decisions will not be final until the official report is released on Sept. 27. We know about them only because a secret draft was leaked ahead of the final editing session coming up in Stockholm. Scientists from a few countries have raised objections to the preliminary decisions on sea level and temperature, and they could well change in the final report.
Perhaps they should; there are climate scientists not serving on the committee this year who think so. Their fear is that the intergovernmental panel might be pulling punches.
It turns out that the Nobel Prize, welcome as it might have been back in 2007, served the same function it has for many other scientists who have won it over the years: it painted a fat target on the committee’s back. The group has been subjected to attack in recent years by climate skeptics. The intimidation tactics have included abusive language on blogs, comparisons to the Unabomber, e-mail hacking and even occasional death threats.
Who could blame the panel if it wound up erring on the side of scientific conservatism? Yet most citizens surely want something else from the group: an unvarnished analysis of the risks they face.
To be clear, even if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ends up sticking with the lowball numbers in these two instances, they are worrisome enough. As best scientists can tell, the question with sea level is not whether it is going to get to three feet and then five feet of increase, but merely whether it will happen in this century or the next.
Likewise, with temperature, the panel is saying only that the lowball numbers are possible, not that they are likely. In fact, the metric used in the scientific literature, the temperature effect of doubled carbon dioxide, is merely a convenient way of comparing studies. Many people make the mistake of thinking that is how much of a global temperature increase will actually occur.
At the pace we are going, there is no reason to think that we will stop burning fossil fuels when carbon dioxide doubles. We could be on our way to tripling or quadrupling the amount of that heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. In that case, experts believe, even an earth that turns out to be somewhat insensitive to carbon dioxide will undergo drastic changes.
Obviously, the high estimates are even scarier. So it would be nice to hear an explanation from the drafters of this coming report as to why they made decisions that effectively play up the low-end possibilities. But with the report still officially under wraps, they are not speaking publicly. We are thus left wondering whether it is a matter of pure professional judgment — or whether they have been cowed by the attacks of recent years.
Assuming these decisions withstand final review, it will be fascinating to hear the detailed explanations in Stockholm.
Top Obama aide Heather Zichal worked the Pavillion fracking investigation
by Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter, EnergyWire: Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Pavillion, Wyo., is a tiny community of fewer than 300 people, nearly 2,000 miles from Washington, D.C., in a deeply Republican state that President Obama never had any chance of winning.
But Obama's top aide on energy issues, Heather Zichal, took a significant interest in the community's water supply in late 2011 and early 2012.
Documents show that Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, monitored and managed developments behind the scenes as U.S. EPA prepared to release its findings that hydraulic fracturing had contaminated groundwater in Pavillion.
Those findings had outsized implications for the country's oil and gas drilling boom. They would serve as the first documentation of water contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Advances in the process have been behind the surge in domestic production.
Industry had long held that there had never been a documented instance of such contamination. But the EPA report stood to puncture that talking point. Nearly three years later, EPA has abandoned the investigation, and the implications of its findings are unclear.
Emails obtained by EnergyWire through the Freedom of Information Act show that Zichal got briefings from top EPA officials as they prepared to release the report, was informed the afternoon before the report was rolled out in December 2011 and sought to manage the fallout when it came under criticism.
"Can we get some talking points on this asap?" Zichal wrote to then-Deputy EPA Administrator Bob Perciasepe on January 3, 2012, above a news story on flaws in EPA's handling of the sampling process.
The FOIA documents also show that Zichal emailed with then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on the Pavillion investigation. Jackson herself showed considerable interest in the case, sending nearly 100 emails involving Pavillion between November 2010 and April 2011, including a few from her personal email account.
Jackson had also taken a close interest in a drilling contamination case in Texas that was dropped in 2012 (EnergyWire, Feb. 13).
White House officials say there is nothing unusual in Zichal’s involvement in Pavillion. But environmentalists and other groups say it indicates that politics might have been intruding on science.
EPA's Pavillion report found fracking fluids to be present in deep groundwater but not the area's shallower drinking water. The drilling and fracking that took place in Pavillion bears little resemblance to the mile-deep, high-volume drilling taking place in shale formations in Pennsylvania and North Dakota. But the report became a go-to example for environmentalists and others worried that fracturing could contaminate groundwater.
The findings ran into a buzz saw of criticism from the oil and gas industry and state officials. They deemed it sloppy and lacking in transparency. And when the U.S. Geological Survey said it couldn't replicate the results from one of the wells, they said their criticisms were validated.
EPA abandoned the Pavillion investigation earlier this summer with little explanation (EnergyWire, June 21, 2013). It was EPA's third retreat from a drilling contamination investigation during the Obama administration, joining methane migration cases in Texas and Pennsylvania.
The agency handed the investigation to Wyoming state officials, though the people with fouled water say the state long ignored their concerns and the state had fought EPA on the study. Wyoming will continue with the help of a $1.5 million grant from Encana Oil & Gas, Inc., the company accused of contaminating the water.
EPA says it stands by its results but will not rely on them in the future.
The White House emails add to questions from environmentalists and conservative groups about the role politics played in bringing the Pavillion investigation and in abandoning it. Similar concerns have been raised about the other two cases.
EPA scientists had already found merit to the case by the time the emails show the White House getting involved, said Amy Mall of the Natural Resources Defense Council. But Zichal's interest makes Mall wonder what role the White House played in EPA's retreat in Pavillion and the other two cases.
"This leaves open to question whether political involvement played a role in dropping these three cases," Mall said.
Food & Water Watch, which wants fracking banned, is calling on EPA to reopen all three pollution investigations, said Emily Wurth, the group's water program director.
Conservative lawyer Christopher Horner has already been pursuing evidence he says he obtained that the Obama administration retreated from the Pennsylvania case, in Dimock, out of fear that the investigation might hurt Obama's re-election chances in 2012 (EnergyWire, July 30, 2013). He said White House involvement in the Pavillion case strikes a similar chord.
"That is consistent with the information presented to me about the Dimock case," Horner said, "that politics were guiding the proceedings and political considerations were at play."
Asked for comment, a White House official said Zichal’s involvement was not unusual and didn’t interfere with EPA’s scientific decision making.
“The White House has a coordinating role across agencies, and it is common practice for agencies to let the White House know about major announcements that are coming,” the White House official said. “As the correspondence shows, the EPA conducts these analyses, not the White House, and this specific engagement is consistent with the administration’s strong commitment to scientific integrity.”
“Furthermore,” the official said, “in recognizing that many agencies are involved in policy around natural gas, the president created an interagency working group with the White House to coordinate policy issues and engage in long-term planning on natural gas.”
Zichal led the working group.
Zichal's role in regulations
Zichal, a former aide to then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), started in the White House as the assistant to energy and climate "czar" Carol Browner, who left in 2011. In the past year or so, Zichal has taken on an increasingly high-profile role as the White House's chief ambassador to oil and gas companies.
That role arose in part from industry lobbying. The working group on drilling that Obama tapped Zichal to head was requested by the American Petroleum Institute. Her handling of that assignment has earned her some praise from people in the oil and gas industry and criticism from environmentalists who follow drilling issues.
Zichal has played an important role in the administration's handling of proposed regulations for fracking on public lands. She met more than 20 times in 2012 with industry groups and company executives lobbying on the proposed rule, according to an EnergyWire review of White House visitor records (EnergyWire, April 12).
Environmental groups, which had far fewer meetings with her on the rule, have complained that the increased access is related to the administration's decisions to weaken the rule.
White House visitor records show Zichal met with another top EPA official, senior policy counsel Bob Sussman, in the White House complex three times from October to December 2011. Those records offer no details of what gets discussed. But emails released by EPA under FOIA indicate that Sussman was Zichal's point of contact at EPA on the Pavillion issue.
About three weeks before the rollout, Zichal noted to Sussman in an email that EPA had done a briefing on the report for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and asked whether the agency had done the same for Wyoming's congresswoman and two senators. When he hadn't replied the next day, Zichal followed up -- "Sorry, any update here?"
In November 2011, EPA gave the results of its testing to residents at a community meeting in Pavillion. The next morning, Sussman wrote Zichal that he had the details. Zichal replied, "Great. Will call as soon as this meeting wraps."
The night before the report came out in December, Sussman notified her it would be out the next day and added, "Happy to provide more details."
Dozens more emails between Zichal and Sussman, Jackson and other top EPA officials were withheld under exemptions to FOIA, but their subject lines indicate they concerned the Pavillion investigation.
Call Sacramento. Vote NO on SB4
 | |
Dear fellow Californians, Big Oil is trying to frack up our state and it's time to put a stop to it. They've used their money to create a disaster of a bill that would give them free rein to frack away. This legislative session, we've been watching as various bills were introduced to regulate the dangerous practice of fracking in California. We were hopeful that something would emerge to help California put an end to this practice in the state...and had some hope when environmental champion Senator Fran Pavley introduced her bill, SB4. But then Big Oil came in and threw their cash around -- pushing to remove the bill of its moratorium provision, adding loopholes to avoid disclosing chemicals and inserting a provision that could even block Governor Brown's authority to ban fracking should he determine it is unsafe. Just as Big Oil tried to kill California’s global warming bill in 2010 with Prop 23, they’re now trying to use their millions to frack freely around our state. We can’t let that happen. That's why we're now joining with our allies in the Californians Against Fracking coalition to tell Sacramento to stop SB4. Click here to join the fight and call your Assemblymember today. SB4 has gone from a potentially decent step in the effort to slow fracking in California to what it is now: a bill riddled with loopholes that will allow fracking to boom in our state. And our communities and climate simply can't afford it. A vote in the Assembly could come as soon as today or tomorrow, so now is the time to stand up and tell our representatives in Sacramento to oppose this bill. Our friends at CREDO have set up a great tool to help you call your Assembly member. Click here to use the tool to call your Assemblymember today! California has for a long time been a leader on climate and protecting our environment. We have beaten Big Oil before, and we can do it again.1 SB4 is a step back when we must be surging ahead. Thanks for your help, David Turnbull Oil Change International San Francisco, California 1 See Oil Change International’s analysis of how Big Oil spent millions to lose on Proposition 23:http://prop23. | |
Oil Change International campaigns to expose the true costs of fossil fuels and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy. We are dedicated to identifying and overcoming barriers to that transition. We are a 501c3 organization and all donations are fully tax deductible. Check out our blog at PriceOfOil.org and find out how much oil and coal money your Representatives take atDirtyEnergyMoney.com. | |
Graham Readfearn: The undiscerning climate bookshelf
Climate sceptic book Taxing Air coming to an undiscerning book store near you
by Graham Readfearn,
For example, I recently had cause to wander through the tightly-bound and bulging aisles of my local Dymocks book store. They have some really quite “special” offerings both online and in-store.
Even though we essentially know that astrology is, for all intents and purposes, basically b******s, I can report that the paperback version of “Practical Astrology” is “in stock.”
Failing that, there’s also “Homeopathy for your Cat” within the pages of which you can find out how magic water can cure your ginger’s urinary tract issue.
Are you a book shopping parent who has “wished for a handbook on each child”? Well tough, because Dymocks has sold out of “Homeopathy and Your Child” so you’ll have to work out your kid’s “physical, mental, emotional and spiritual needs” some other way (by the way, I’m not singling out Dymocks here – most of the big high street book sellers also hawk similar enlightenment-crushing garbage).
And there are the books on climate change.
Without any prior knowledge, it’s easy to see how the average punter might be easily fooled by the line-up of books cosying-up in Dymocks and elsewhere. As you can see by the image above, there’s some excellent stuff on offer from well credentialed authors and scientists.
There’s What We Know About Climate Change by MIT Professor of Atmospheric Science Kerry Emanuel. Just beneath, is The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the front lines from Professor Michael Mann, director of Earth System Science at Penn State University, also in the U.S.
And sharing the same shelf space, is Taxing Air written by Dr Bob Carter, an Australian geologist and advisor to about a dozen climate science denial organisations around the world, and John Spooner, a cartoonist for The Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia.
Bob Carter’s fringe views on climate change (it’s all natural) make him a favourite of fossil fuel-funded propaganda unit the Heartland Institute and many, many other groups with similarly dismissive views on human-caused climate change and its risks.
Carter was recently let go by James Cook University in Queensland, where he had been an unpaid adjunct professor for over a decade, because he wasn’t pulling his weight.
Carter hinted – and his supporters screamed – that he had been booted out because he was a climate sceptic. I covered that case for DeSmogBlog and also summarised this and other recent goings on for the ABC Science Show.
But back to Taxing Air, which is yet another climate sceptic book with strong links to a conservative “think tank” – in this case, the Institute for Public Affairs, where Dr Carter is the Science Policy Advisor.
The IPA paid for copies to be sent out to Australian members of parliament and has also hosted a launch event for the book. Research has found that almost four out of five climate sceptic books published since the early 80s have links to conservative think tanks.
Dr Carter, it should be noted, has only written one scientific paper on atmospheric climate change, which claimed – wrongly as it turned out – to have found that recent global warming was down to natural cycles of water temperatures in the Pacific.
One group of leading climate scientists who analysed carter’s paper concluded that the conclusions he and his co-authors drew were “not supported by their analysis or any physical theory presented in their paper.”
But is Taxing Air any good? Well, I have a copy which I’m still trudging through (I may not get to the end). But one academic who has finished it is Australian Ian Enting, and he is none too impressed. Mathematical physicist Enting (author of the Australian Mathematical Scences Institute book Twisted: The distorted mathematics of greenhouse denial) worked at Australia’s leading science agency, the CSIRO, for 24 years in atmospheric research and modelling of the global carbon cycle.
Enting has analysed the book, describing it as a “polemic” characterised by “half-truths and slanted misrepresentation” and “appalling hypocrisy.”
At one point, Enting’s document notes how one chart in Taxing Air is taken from a leaked draft of the not-yet-published United Nations IPCC Assessment Report 5 (due out in two weeks).
The chart has been altered, Enting’s document notes, removing a shaded area that shows the uncertainty range which, had it been left in,
shows how climate models agree with the observations within the range of uncertainty. Enting finds dozens of other examples like this.
But my real reason for going into the Brisbane Dymocks store was to hunt out a copy of Killing the Earth To Save It, written by UK-based climate science denialist and wind-farm hater James Delingpole.
In the UK, it was published under the name Watermelons. There was something remarkable about the book which I had read and was keen to confirm.
The book was published by Connor Court, which has published several other climate sceptic books. The editorial board of Connor Court also includes the IPA executive director John Roskam.
The IPA also paid for Delingpole to tour Australia to promote his book in September 2012 – a favour which he returned by running a public appeal for people to donate cash to the Melbourne-based group, which doesn’t reveal its funders but has run a long campaign of climate misinformation.
But none of these are the “remarkable thing” I referred to earlier.
The remarkable thing was an entry in Chapter 8 – “Welcome To The New World Order.” Delingpole continues to spruik on his Daily Telegraph blog, most recently earlier this week. Here’s what Delingpole says on page 174 of my newly purchased copy:
Probably the best analysis of the Club of Rome’s tangible effects on global environmental policy comes courtesy of a website called “The Green Agenda”:
Indeed.While researching [...] and during my academic studies, I have come across many references to the Club of Rome (CoR), and reports produced by them. Initially I assumed that they were just another high-level environmental think-tank and dismissed the conspiracy theories found on many website claiming that the CoR is a group of global elitists attempting to impose some kind of one world government. I am not a conspiratorial person by nature and was faced with a dilemma when I first read their reports. But it’s all there – in black and white.
So what exactly is “The Green Agenda” which Delingpole tells his readers is offering this leading analysis? Here’s the source of the quote, on the website “The Green Agenda.” And who runs “The Green Agenda”? It is a sister site of The Watchman’s Post - which describes itself as a “Christian/ Messianic End Time Messenger!” based in New Zealand.
That’s right. Delingpole’s “analysis” of a jumped-up conspiracy theory about plans for a one world government come direct from a group of Christian fundamentalists who preach about second comings and “end times.” The watchman’s website details the coming of an “anti-Christ,” “times of distress and tribulation” and “Triads of evil.”
Here’s a taster:
True Christians will be seen at best as ‘insane’ and at worst as worthy of elimination. However, note; the period being introduced at that time and rightly called the ‘Time of Tribulation’ will quickly degenerate into a terrible time of trouble for almost everyone in the whole world, not just believers in Jesus. [We will explain more, later!] We can add with conviction, that we believe the ‘Time of God’s judgmental anger’ is a separate period of time as indicated by the pouring out of the ‘Bowls of Wrath’ when all true Believers will be sovereignly protected! [We will explain later.]Perhaps it might be worth checking a few more of Delingpole’s sources in “Killing the earth to Save It” which is described by News Corp. columnist Andrew Bolt on the back cover as “wonderful” with “devastating facts and lacerating anecdotes.”
Not just devastating and lacerating, but potentially world ending – apparently – just not in the way Bolt and Delingpole might have expected.
Oh, did I say that Killing the World To Save It and Taxing Air are available in “all good bookshops”?
http://www.readfearn.com/2013/09/the-undiscerning-climate-bookshelf/