environment Politics: assholes computer models denialists idiots Republican obstructionism scientific method
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 26: King Canute Redux
The August 7 Sacramento Bee (CA) describes the importance of computer modeling in the future of climate science, and notes that a certain group of political types don’t like the idea:
Better computers should help with the difficult climate problem of clouds, which interfere with energy flow between the Earth and the sun in two ways, Kinter said. They reflect some of the sun’s energy back to space, a cooling effect, but also absorb and send back some energy the Earth emits, a warming effect.
Computers also are used to simulate how particles known as aerosols scatter or absorb heat in different ways, and how they interact with clouds.
Thousands of scientists around the world are working on better climate models. Kinter and his group focus on how predictable extreme events such as floods, droughts and heat waves will be as the climate changes.
(snip)
“Almost overnight, the question changed to ‘What is the impact of this climate change on our human and natural systems?’ ” said Lawrence Buja, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “We need to (present) as convincing a case as we can.”
But in the latest sign of distrust for computer models, House Republicans put a provision in a foreign aid bill to eliminate U.S. funding for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Naturally. Psychopaths, all of ’em. Sent August 8:
Has there ever been a major political party in America that has been so loud and proud about not being based in reality? It’s not just computer models that Republicans distrust, it’s any and all forms of verifiable information and research, as witness the anti-factual bias of Fox News, the GOP’s house media organ.
The climate crisis is real, growing and extremely urgent. The long-term consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect are far more significant globally than any other so-called “security” issue (an assessment with which Army and CIA analysts concur). Yet conservatives continue claiming the problem doesn’t exist. Of course, once the evidence finally overwhelms them, they’ll start yelling that “free-market solutions” (along with tax breaks for the very wealthy) are the only way out. My question: why would anyone want advice from people so hubristic they claim to be exempt from the laws of physics and chemistry?
Warren Senders
environment Politics: biodiversity media irresponsibility prairies scientific method
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 25: Cockroaches and Grasses?
More on the “Prairie grasses will do okay” story, this time from the August 7 Colorodoan, and featuring the researcher in charge describing his methodology. It’s pretty interesting:
CHEYENNE — On the plains west of here Thursday, plant physiologist Jack Morgan inspected some grasses growing on a plot surrounded by a hollow hoop beneath an array of small heaters suspended from metal rods.
“Can you hear the hissing sound?” he said. “That’s the sound of the CO2 being emitted. It does it at a controlled rate, and we measure it in the middle of that ring.”
What Morgan, a rangeland scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Fort Collins, really is measuring is how rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere as a result of climate change might alter how grasses and weeds grow in the western Great Plains – critical information for ranchers and cattle owners who could see their businesses reshaped by climate change.
There are, alas, negative consequences to positive consequences. Hence this letter, sent August 7:
Jack Morgan and his research team are offering something rare: a positive side-effect of climate change. While their findings of plant resilience are very welcome, it’s important to keep a sense of the larger picture. Increased drought resistance is crucial on a climatically altered planet, because there’ll be more droughts — along with more extreme weather of all sorts. The prognosis for Earth’s environment over the next millennia is pretty grim; extreme losses of biodiversity are probably inevitable, even if prairie grasses do better than expected.
Powerful forces in our media and politics have been actively denying the scientific basis of climate change predictions for many years. As the evidence keeps mounting, we’ll start hearing a “global warming is good for us” message instead, in which studies like Dr. Morgan’s will be misapplied to advocate against meaningful action on climate and energy issues. This must not be allowed to happen.
Warren Senders
environment: denialism droughts prairies
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 24: The Bad News IS The Good News
The August 6 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports that increased CO2 may help some plants resist droughts more effectively:
CHEYENNE — A rising carbon dioxide level may help protect some prairie plants from a decrease in water.
An experiment running at the Agricultural Research Service’s High Plains Grassland Research Station to the northwest of Cheyenne examined the interaction of slightly warmer temperatures, higher carbon dioxide levels and less water.
“The overview is that we’re doing research to evaluate the effects of climate change on grassland ecology,” Jack Morgan, plant physiologist and researcher with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said of the cause of the study.
Of course, without the climate change, there wouldn’t be as many droughts for them to resist. What the right hand giveth, the left hand taketh away. Or something. Sent August 6:
It’s certainly likely that some effects of climate change will have welcome consequences, like an increase in plants’ ability to resist prolonged dry periods. On the other hand, it’s irrefutable that as the greenhouse effect intensifies, the world as a whole is going to experience more droughts — along with more irregular and extreme weather events of every kind. Those plants are going to need every bit of their augmented survival capability to continue thriving in the coming centuries. So, of course, are humans.
We are clever creatures, and we’ll probably figure out how to keep on keeping on as the world’s climate changes. But we’ll need wisdom, forethought and resourcefulness if our species is to avoid what biologists euphemistically call an “evolutionary bottleneck.” Every day spent denying the threat of global warming is a day wasted; we can no longer delay in preparing for a radically transformed future.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans stupidity
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 23: He’s Naturally Stupid.
More fun with Tim Pawlenty’s remarks, this time courtesy of the August 5 LA Times:
Tim Pawlenty said in an interview this week that the science of global warming remains unclear and that Earth’s shifting climate is more likely due to natural causes.
The interview with the Miami Herald marked the most recent example of Pawlenty’s evolution on the issue. Once an advocate of cap-and-trade policies to reduce carbon admissions, the former Minnesota governor has since recanted his support for such proposals.
As the GOP presidential candidate told the Herald’s Marc Caputo:, “Like most of the major candidates on the Republican side to varying degrees, everybody studied it, looked at it. We did the same. But I concluded, in the end some years ago, that it was a bad idea. . . . We never actually implemented it. I concluded ultimately it was a bad idea. It would be harmful to the economy. The science was I think based on unreliable conclusions.”
Expanding on the Breslin idea from yesterday. Sent August 6:
So Tim Pawlenty thinks climate change is due to “natural causes,” eh? Sure, I’ll go along with that. As long as Mr. Pawlenty agrees that lung cancer and emphysema are “natural” responses to tobacco smoking, that heart disease is a “natural” response to obesity, and that brain damage is a “natural” consequence of traumatic head injuries.
Climate change is the atmosphere’s predictable and “natural” response to massive atmospheric releases of greenhouse gases, courtesy of the world’s industrialized civilizations. To pretend otherwise is to be deliberately ignorant of basic physics and chemistry, which may be fine for a FOX-fed tea-party zealot, but should instantly disqualify any aspirant to the nation’s highest office.
Mr. Pawlenty’s readiness to pander to the most extreme examples of anti-science zealotry in his party’s base are, of course, an opportunistic response to the exigencies of twenty-first century Republican electoral politics. I guess that’s “natural,” too.
Warren Senders
environment humor Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republicans
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 22: shut up he explained.
In the Not-News-To-Anyone-Who’s-Been-Paying-Attention category, the August 4 Minnesota Star-Tribune reports that (unlike none of the other Republican presidential aspirants) Tim Pawlenty is a gutless, opportunistic, sociopath:
Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s position on climate change has now shifted from “one of the most important issues of our time” to questioning whether humans have had any effect on climate change at all.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Miami Herald, Pawlenty said that “the weight of the evidence is that most of it, maybe all of it, is because of natural causes. But to the extent there is some element of human behavior causing some of it — that’s what the scientific debate is about.”
It wasn’t too long ago that Pawlenty took a much more muscular approach to climate change. Shortly into his second term as governor, the Minnesota Republican made a big push for clean energy.
When he was named chair of the National Governors Association, Pawlenty had the theme of “Securing a Clean Energy Future.” He touted Minnesota legislation that set an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent by 2015 and 80 percent by 2050. In 2007 he said he wanted the Upper Midwest to become “the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.”
On the other hand, he gave me the opportunity to cite, in its entirety, one of the funniest sentences ever written in English. Sent August 5:
It’s not just greenhouse emissions that are bringing on an unstable climate. Republican politicians and the Tea Party adherents to whom they are pandering are emitting steadily increasing quantities of ignorance. While we must give these anti-science, anti-environment zealots credit for absolutely right in their own minds, the facts suggest that they’re absolutely wrong everywhere else. Tim Pawlenty’s suggestion that climate change is triggered by “natural causes” reminds me of Jimmy Breslin’s Mafia-themed comic novel, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” in which “Raymond the Wolf passed away in his sleep one night from natural causes; his heart stopped beating when the three men who slipped into his bedroom stuck knives in it.” Yes, Mr. Pawlenty, global warming is a totally natural response to an anthropogenic overdose of CO2. But I doubt that’s what The Governor Who Couldn’t Talk Straight meant; I think he’s been breathing too many tea fumes.
Warren Senders
India Personal: travel notes
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Last Few Days In Pune…
…Had a great concert in Nasik; returned to Pune in time to sing again on Saturday night. Sunday morning gave a lecture-demonstration on the pedagogy of improvisation, at the Maharashtra Cultural Centre. Tomorrow morning another lec-dem on Hindustani music teaching methodology at University of Pune. Then all my professional obligations are over, mercifully.
We leave on the 24th and are both anticipating and dreading the impending 11 hour layover in Paris. We may try and go into the city and enjoy ourselves during the day. We’ll see.
For now, that’s all. I’m using my brother-in-law’s computer and don’t have time to expand.
I will post photos and audio clips once I’m back stateside.
Cheers!
environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility fee and dividend media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 21: In The Country Of The Crazy And Stupid…
In August 4th’s Quincy Patriot-Ledger (MA), D.R. Tucker discusses the eminently sensible fee-and-dividend approach to taxing carbon emissions:
In mid-June, more than 80 members of the Citizens Climate Lobby met with House and Senate members to seek support for a market-based, revenue-neutral solution. Under their proposal, known as “fee and dividend,” a gradually increasing fee would be charged on coal, oil and natural gas at the point of origin or import.
The fee would be set initially at $15 per ton of carbon dioxide in the fuel.
Proceeds would be distributed as dividend checks to the public directly.
This fee will increase the cost of fossil fuels, but the dividend checks will reduce the impact on working families.
The state economy will reap benefits from increased investment in energy conservation and establishment of new companies developing renewable alternatives to fossil fuels. This proposal will create local jobs in energy conservation and renewable energy.
This revenue-neutral approach to addressing climate change is politically neutral, easing progressives’ concerns about the manipulation of emissions trading in cap-and-trade and assuaging conservatives’ fears about increasing the federal government’s role.
It’s the right action to take, a move that will pay dividends simultaneously to the consumer, the state economy and the environment.
“Eminently sensible” = doomed. Sent August 4:
Mr. Tucker’s prescription for an economically and environmentally sane climate policy is exactly correct. Unfortunately, as events over the past decade have demonstrated time and time again, sanity appears undervalued by our representatives in politics. If a fee-and-dividend approach to carbon emissions is to have a chance of succeeding, our print and broadcast media must do their job. The “balanced” model, with every scientifically informed expert countered by a paid shill from the petroleum industry, is both an intellectual and an environmental disaster. By convincing a plurality of Americans that the science “isn’t settled,” this approach has drastically degraded the quality of the discussion, bringing progress on environmental issues to an absolute standstill. The Jeffersonian ideal of a “well-informed citizenry” is crucial for a functioning democracy; when reporting on a threat as significant as climate change, our media must abandon irresponsible “false equivalency,” and rededicate itself to reporting scientific truth.
Warren Senders
Uncategorized: 78 rpm discs bansuri genius
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Kumar Birendra Narayan
Here is a beautiful pair of bansuri performances by Kumar Birendra Narayan, whom I gather was an important instrumentalist in Bengali light and film music, thanks to an en passant mention by Durbadal Chattopadhyay:
Since my father was a musician, many eminent personalities visited our place. He also had an orchestra of which I was the monitor. I started taking music lessons from several people in instruments like the banjo, piano and violin. Musicians like Kumar Birendra Narayan (flute), who accompanied SD Burman on numerous Bangla songs, AS Dubey and others were there. I learnt the violin from my father. Then I took lessons in classical music under the baton of Professor Robin Ghosh…
Link
He has beautiful classical chops; these are very attractive and lilting performances. Enjoy!
Raga “Pradeep” (Patdeep)
Thumri
environment Politics: Durban Conference Kyoto United Nations
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 20: Nothing To See Here. Move Along, Folks.
The August 3 Chicago Tribune reports on low expectations for the upcoming Durban conference:
WELLINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Major climate talks in South Africa at year-end will be unlikely to strike agreement on a new pact, but will be important in determining the shape of
long-term efforts to tackle climate change, a senior U.N. climate official said on Tuesday.The future of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing U.N. plan which obliges about 40 industrialised nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012, is widely seen as under threat. Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not extend it, while the United States never signed up to it.
La de da de da de da de da….
Sent August 3:
How low our hopes have fallen! The international community is still meeting in Durban to address the complexities of climate change — and while nobody expects anything to actually, you know, happen, the good news is that representatives of the world’s nations will all be there mouthing platitudes at one another. Given that the overwhelming consensus of the scientists who actually know what’s going on with the planet’s climate is that runaway climate change poses a civilizational threat to our species, this diplomatic dithering is a pathetic substitute for the concerted worldwide action that is necessary. Eventually, of course, we’ll learn that they’ve agreed to a template for developing a process to organize a protocol for establishing a framework for beginning negotiations on the elements that need to be included in a new emissions treaty to replace the Kyoto Agreement. And that will be our good news for the day.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists false equivalency idiots media irresponsibility Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 8, Day 19: We’re Still Learning More About Gravity!
The August 2 edition of the Deseret News (UT) contains more false equivalency bullshit:
In the face of repeated assertions that the science on global warming is “settled,” ongoing studies and developments in the area leave some insisting that claim remains true, while others say the science is anything but.
According to Gallup’s annual environmental poll, the percentage of Americans saying they worry a great deal or a fair amount about global warming has fallen from a high of 66 percent in 2008 to a stable 51 percent in 2011. Furthermore, 43 percent of Americans say the seriousness of global warming is exaggerated in the news.
A breakdown of global warming poll data shows that the issue remains mainly ideological, with 72 percent of Democrats saying they worry about global warming compared to 51 percent of Independents and 31 percent of Republicans.
As the global warming debate becomes more politicized in individual attitudes, state governments, Congress and even within the United Nations, the possibility of the science becoming truly “settled” appears unlikely.
In a study published July 25 in the science journal Remote Sensing, William Braswell and Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, suggest the Earth’s atmosphere is more efficient at releasing energy into space than models used to forecast climate change have been programmed to “believe.”
As an atheist I strive to avoid theonormative expletives. So I have a limited rhetorical palette available for properly cursing these fuckers. Sent August 2:
It’s amazing how much faith Republican politicians and members of the media place in science. Just watch as they cite the Braswell/Spencer study as an invalidation of the work of hundreds of other researchers. Their readiness to trust a paper which has already been criticized as methodologically flawed is touching in its innocence. Of course this has nothing to do with the study’s usefulness to the anti-environmental agenda; such a suggestion is terribly cynical!
Sigh.
Scientific integrity demands that experimental results must be regarded skeptically; ideologically convenient findings should be even more subject to careful scrutiny. The scientific consensus on human causes of climate change is built on an enormous body of work that has withstood attempts at falsification. To say the “science isn’t settled” does not mean the basic principles are invalid, only that there are still gaps in our knowledge. The science of global warming is as settled as it needs to be, despite the wishful thinking of denialists in Congress and the media.
Warren Senders