U.S. Short-Changes Climate Monitoring

U.S. short-changes climate monitoring, report says.

Reducing the number of satellites places the global-warming program 'in serious jeopardy,' government scientists warn.

America will lose much of its ability to monitor global warming from space unless the Bush administration reverses course and restores funding for the next generation of climate instruments, according to a confidential report prepared by government scientists.

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The Assault on Reason

The Assault on Reason

In the months following the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I began to focus on why our democracy has been so slow to deal with the climate crisis. The unwillingness to solve this problem is not only the result of a lack of political will, but it has also been caused by the emergence of a new political environment dangerously hostile to reason, knowledge, and facts. In the long-term, this poses a threat to the very basis of American democracy: the ability of a well-informed citizenry to use the rule of reason to hold government accountable.

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Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason:

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You can purchase The Assault on Reason by visiting:

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START HERE

In the months following the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I began to focus on why our democracy has been so slow to deal with the climate crisis. The unwillingness to solve this problem is not only the result of a lack of political will, but it has also been caused by the emergence of a new political environment dangerously hostile to reason, knowledge, and facts. In the long-term, this poses a threat to the very basis of American democracy.

~ Al Gore

START HERE:
Document is publicly viewable at:

Edited By WestTexasBliss

IPCC report upbeat on climate change Published

BANGKOK: After two grim warnings on the impact of climate change, the world’s top experts were unusually upbeat in assessing ways to protect the Earth, but said that national leaders have no time to waste.
The report delivered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN’s top authority on the subject which met in Bangkok last week, said humanity could at least slow global warming with existing, affordable technology.
But the experts warned that time was of the essence to ward off the most destructive effects of climate change.
“We believe that human beings are capable of reducing the problems that we may get on climate change,” Ogunlade Davidson, the co-chair of the meeting, said.

“The only difficulty is to get the political will to do that,” he said.

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My fear is this whole global warming crisis will bring out the worst of us, not the best. Can anyone realistically see humankind working together to kick this thing, or does the crisis have the propensity to bring out the Hitler like traits in us all? Idealistically I would like us all to work this out but realistically I see a horror that I will not spare any words on. May God have mercy on us all.

~ Paul M

Science triumphs over politics at UN climate change meeting

SCIENCE had a rare victory over politics at this week's UN climate change conference, after a united call for action emerged despite fierce debate over how to best tackle global warming.

The UN's top body on climate change last Friday released a report approved by delegates from 120 nations, laying out how the world could avoid the worst impacts of global warming with minimal economic damage.

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting began in Bangkok last Monday, delegates warned that it was fanciful to believe all the players had the interests of the planet at the top of their agenda.

They said nations would inevitably fight to protect their own economic and political interests, and as the meeting got under way, reports crept out from behind the closed doors that some delegations were indeed playing politics.

But after all the battles, wrangling and interventions, most agreed that science had triumphed, with politics sometimes playing a helping hand.

"You could argue that some of the delegates that are most critical and difficult towards the text are the most important to the text," said Michael Williams, spokesman for the UN's Environment Programme.

"By challenging and nitpicking and asking questions, that just increases the chances of us getting a better text rather than just being polite about it."

The United States, usually fingered as a key culprit in protecting economic interests over climate change concerns, escaped largely unscathed from the conference, with most delegates pleasantly surprised by its performance.

"I was relieved to see the Americans behaving, that makes such a difference," said Stephan Singer, of the conservation group WWF.

Shouldering most of the blame for trying to stick a political oar in the proceedings was China, which was said to be trying to play up the costs of taking immediate action to battle global warming.

Michael Mueller, a German environment ministry official who attended the talks, accused China of impeding progress towards cutting greenhouse gases, and said its delegates had been "masters of deception and the art of interpretation".
BANGKOK 06-May-07

World Wide Strike, July 7, 2007

My Solution

Submitted by Sherwy on Sat, 04/28/2007.

Well finally got the opportunity to watch AIT and my gut feeling on how I would feel after watching this mind bending truth of what society has created was right. It made me feel sad, scared and sick. Sad that this could actually have happened, sad for my children who will potentially grow up only knowing destruction, death, disasters, animal extinctions, disease………………………… Scared that we want do anything, scared that our ability to change will be taken from us by a handful of people, organizations, politicians and corporations. Sick of doing nothing, sick of listening to those in charge lying and manipulating us and I feel sick thinking about those poor animals and eco systems that also live in this world, having no idea no warning of this destruction that man is and has created.

We have to stop talking about the changes, stop talking about implementing small decreases of emissions by say 2012. Those kinds of discussions have been going on for 20+ years now and still only small changes have been implemented. In most cases increases in emissions have occurred, as we have seen in AIT in those years of talks the environmental impact of our current way of life is speeding this fatal process up. This will lead us to only one outcome as they say “to the end of life as we know it”. So if we don’t stop as a world wide society killing our planet WE WILL END LIFE we know this!!!!! Those people who are continuing this situation and controlling the people blinding and lying to us all to protect there annual profits will at the end of the day LOSE , because end in some form is coming life as we know it is on a knife edge. For me it has gone beyond just doing your bit, to now the only way is to unit as one world one society and make the changes required.

My solution is to implement sudden change by pre-empting that end. How???? By stopping simple stopping, you think if we as ordinary people just stopped going to work and protested across the world, who would be hardest hit??? We are lead to believe that we would suffer. If we stopped around the world and said enough they would have to listen and change would happen rapidly. If we spent those billions, trillions of dollars world wide that have been generated by that which is KILLING OUR PLANET us!!! If we as a world wide society just spent some time and money implementing those necessary changes, then I believe in 1year maybe 2years who cares how long we could divert a forced and inevitable destruction, that would have a far greater impact on man then 1 or 2 years of hard work.

We need to be not one person making change but one world making that world wide change.

Am I making sense here? I need some feed back, could this work??? What do you think???

Sherwy's blog:
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World Wide Strike
Submitted by WestTexasBliss on Sat, 04/28/2007.

Okay, how about doing this July 7, 2007.
Starting 12:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. 24 hours,

What do you think?

Wembley's Live Earth Lineup Announced
Madonna, Genesis, Foo Fighters and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are to play at the new Wembley Stadium for a concert highlighting the threat of climate change.
Other acts at the London leg of the Live Earth series of concerts include James Blunt, Duran Duran, Snow Patrol, Razorlight and Damien Rice.

Seven Live Earth shows will take place around the world on July 7. The line-up for the UK leg of the 24 hour event was announced yesterday by Live Earth founder and executive producer Kevin Wall. He said: "This monster line-up will ensure Live Earth meets our goal of bringing together people from around the world to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth will not only span all seven continents, but the musicians who have answered our call span multiple genres and generations."

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Boxer will 'hound' Bush on emissions regulations

Sen. Barbara Boxer promised to pressure the Bush administration to adopt California-style global warming regulations, saying Wednesday that the Supreme Court "handed us a gift" with its recent landmark decision authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce greenhouse gases as a pollutant.
The decision "put the wind at our backs," the California Democrat said, vowing at the National Press Club to haul administration officials before her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to ask them what immediate steps they will take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are produced by the consumption of fossil fuels.
"I will hound them on this week after week after week after week," said Boxer, who chairs the committee. "It doesn't take China doing anything. It doesn't take India doing anything. It doesn't take Congress doing anything."
The administration has the power to act on its own, she said, and "I intend to move to make sure the administration uses its powers."

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Pelosi Opens Doors

The Bush administration and its allies in the media have been heaping scorn upon House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for her trip last week to Syria to speak with Syrian President Bashar Assad.The conservative media claim Pelosi has undermined U.S. foreign policy. How? By ignoring the Bush administration's policy to not have direct talks with Syria, which they claim is one of the world's leading sponsors of international terrorism.
Some have gone so far as to call for Pelosi's prosecution under the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American "without authority of the United States" to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States."
If you agree with that line of argument, since we are at war, Pelosi is guilty of treasonous behavior. There's just one problem. The argument is total nonsense.

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Broad Irony

The first rule when criticizing popular science presentations for inaccuracies should be to double check any 'facts' you use. It is rather ironic then that William Broad's latest piece on Al Gore plays just as loose with them as he accuses Gore of doing.

We criticized William Broad previously for a piece that misrepresented the scientific understanding of the factors that drive climate change over millions of years, systematically understating the scientifically-established role of greenhouse gases, and over-stating the role of natural factors including those as speculative as cosmic rays. In this piece, Broad attempts to discredit Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" by exaggerating the legitimate, but minor, criticisms of his treatment of the science by experts on climate science, and presenting specious or unsubstantiated criticisms by a small number of the usual, well-known contrarians who wouldn't agree even if Gore read aloud from the latest IPCC report.

This article is very disappointing, not just because it gets things so wrong, but because it misses an opportunity to address a much more substantive issue. It is inevitable that working scientists will find popular presentations of their work lacking in depth and nuance (after all, depth and nuance are what we do!). Whatever you may think about Al Gore's movie, it is indisputable that it has raised awareness of the issues and left a substantial part of the public hungry for more information. That hunger can only be fed by people who are closer to the science than Gore, and it is inevitable that the AIT will be used as a springboard or contrast for further presentations. A better article would have investigated how that is happening and how that is affecting public awareness of the science. Unfortunately, this article does nothing to improve public awareness, and that is deeply ironic.
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Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt
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Edited by WestTexasBliss
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Global Warming Debate

Along with Richard Somerville (UC San Diego) and Brenda Ekwurzel (Union of Concerned Scientists), I'll be appearing at a debate on Wednesday (March 14th) about whether Global Warming is a crisis (or not). That might have gone without notice (like most of my public talks), except that our opponents are Michael Crichton, Richard Lindzen and Philip Stott. The preliminary position statements (from me and from Philip Stott) are available on the ABCnews site. It's sold out, but the proceedings will be broadcast on NPR (for instance, WNYC 820 AM on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 2PM) and there will be a podcast (though I don't know if it will stream live). There's an online poll as well for what that's worth.

I'm quite looking forward to this, but I have to admit to conflicting thoughts. Does participating help perpetuate the idea that global warming per se is still up for debate? Is this kind of rhetorical jousting useful for clarifying issues of science that most people there will only superficially grasp? Can this be entertaining and educational? Or does it just validate the least serious opposition? Is it simply a waste of time that would be better spent blogging?
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I'd be interested in any thoughts people might have.
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Gavin
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Gavin, RealClimate (Read the Full Story)

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Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds

The following letter from Carl Wunsch is intended to clarify his views on global warming in general, and the The Great Global Warming Swindle which misrepresented them.

Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film "The Global Warming Swindle"

I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost surely has a major human-induced component. But I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars' because all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.

The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for which the observational record is so clear, that most scientists would agree that they are almost surely true (adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,...). Other elements remain more uncertain, but we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US midwestern precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples.

Swindled

Swindled: Carl Wunsch responds

RealClimate (Comments)

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