February 19-24, 2016::End of the day round-up

An Op-Ed by David Bernstein centered around Justice Robert Jackson's one-year leave of absence from SCOTUS to serve as chief prosecutor at the war crimes trials in Nuremberg.

Temporarily having an eight-justice Supreme Court is not ‘sacrificing a single interest of importance’

I came across this article not long after listening to the following episode of TRC. Turns out, this is the article referenced in the pod,,,

Melting Greenland ice changing ocean circulation, Earth's gravitational field

The melting of the Greenland ice sheet due to climate change is having an impact on ocean circulation and rising sea levels, according to new studies from university researchers across North America.

"It was well known that Greenland's ice was melting, it was well known that that melting was accelerating, and it was well known that extra melting was changing the salinity of the North Atlantic Ocean," said Tim Dixon, a Canadian professor in the department of geophysics at the University of South Florida, who recently co-authored a study published in Nature Communications.

Dixon said that when ice melts, it deposits fresh water into the ocean that dilutes the salt in the North Atlantic. "What was not known is what effect if any that would have on ocean circulation," he said.
 ,,,
 "In the extreme case of a breakdown in this global ocean circulation pattern, equatorial regions could become much hotter than they are today and polar regions could become much colder than they are today, and significant fractions of the globe might become unlivable."
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Colgan said that just like the moon pulls tides around the Earth with its gravity, by being relatively massive, Greenland pulls water towards it. As Greenland gets smaller, the ocean water flows farther away towards the equator, in what is called a gravitational far-field.

I know I have posted concerning the so-called conspiracies surrounding Scalia's death. This one take the cake, it's NPR for god's sake. The Jones Effect in full force,,,


Scalia And Leonard Nimoy: Justice's Death Spurs Conspiracy Theories

In the world of conspiracy theories it's hard to separate the parody from the true believers. But if you believe these notions are all sound and fury signifying nothing, think again. They eventually compelled Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara to make public Scalia's private health information as told to her by the justice's doctor, Rear Adm. Brian Monahan. The doctor told her Scalia had a history of heart disease and high blood pressure so significant that surgery to repair an injured shoulder couldn't be risked.

This may be why his family was not interested in an autopsy, simply grateful for the peaceful circumstances of his demise.

Subaru recalls 77,000 Tribecas

Subaru is recalling 77,000 Tribeca SUVs due to a defective hood latch that can open unexpectedly while driving. The recall affects 2006 - 2014 models.

Help Chassé Overcome Challenges by Vyckie Garrison - GoFundMe

The only good that can come from this, PA tax payers won't have to pay for his care. I have no sympathy for this man or his family in regards to his conviction and jail time.

Judge orders cable company founder released from prison

Prosecutors says Rigas suffers from bladder cancer that has advanced to his lungs, making it unlikely he’ll live more than six months.

Islamic Climate Change Declaration More Effective Than Encyclical | The New Republic

Pope Francis may have soaked up headlines earlier this summer when he published a whopping 192-page encyclical on climate change, but this week Muslims issued a declaration that could influence an even larger population than the Catholic decree. The declaration, announced Tuesday as part of the two-day International Islamic Climate Change Symposium in Istanbul, further exemplifies the trend of faith-based climate activism ahead of the U.N. climate change summit in December.

Like the papal encyclical, the Islamic Climate Change Declaration calls for a rejection of human greed for natural resources, respect of nature’s “perfect equilibrium,” and recognition of the “moral obligation” to conserve. More concretely, it hopes to rally the world’s wealthiest and oil-producing countries—several of which are predominantly Muslim—to act as leaders in cutting emissions and helping less affluent governments make the same reductions. Corporations were asked to commit to waste-free business plans and divest from economies driven by traditional fuel sources.
,,,
Though Tuesday’s declaration may not have a political impact on countries like Pakistan, faith-based appeals could have resounding effects in public perception and encourage conversation on climate change, as the recent encyclical has.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Islamic philosopher and professor at George Washington University, said that faith has much greater power to reach Muslims than politics. For instance, Egypt and other countries in the Nile basin have attempted to restrict the river's pollution, but it’s unlikely for residents to stop their dumping practices without religious impetus from a local mosque, said Nasr. “Islam is still very powerful in the Islamic world,” he said. “If a priest says, ‘Don’t cut a tree, because it’s a sin,’ it will have much more effect.”

Islamic Climate Change Declaration More Effective Than Encyclical | The New Republic

Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong. - Vox

Katie Couric recently interviewed Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, and the subject of climate change came up. They discussed it for over four minutes, likely marking the longest any national GOP political figure has spent talking about climate change in the past five years.

Conservatives are delighted with Fiorina's performance. Thrilled. Pumped. They think she crushed Couric and showed how to outwit liberals on climate change.

In fact, Fiorina's comments are a farrago of falsehoods and red herrings, a derp different in character from science-denial derp, but no less derpy.

The key to a "moderate" Republican position on climate change is that it has to neutralize the science debate, which party leaders have concluded is not favorable terrain. The Tea Party base remains staunchly wedded to science denialism, but everywhere else on the political spectrum (including among other Republicans), majorities now agree that climate change is a problem that warrants serious solutions. Denialism, concentrated in conservative white men, has become a liability among young people, Hispanics, and other demographics Republicans badly need to court.
So the trick for the aspiring Republican moderate is to acknowledge the scientific consensus on climate change while maintaining opposition to any policy that might penalize fossil fuels or advantage renewable energy.
Jeb Bush has tried to do this, with little success. But Fiorina seems to have pulled it off, at least in the eyes of conservatives.

Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong. - Vox

See also:
 

Carly Fiorina Says All The Stupid On Climate Change And Then Some

Will the residents of Kivalina, Alaska be the first climate change refugees in the US?

Scientists estimate that due to climate change, the village of Kivalina, in northwestern Alaska, will be underwater by the year 2025.

In 2008, the Inupiat village sued 24 of the world's biggest fossil fuel companies for damages. In 2013, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the village has declared it will not file a new claim in state court.

Meanwhile, nature, heedless of humankind’s eternal squabbles, goes about its business: the sea around Kivalina continues to rise, the storms get stronger, the ice gets thinner — and Kivalina's 400 residents must grapple with how to relocate in the decade they're estimated to have left.
,,,

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell visited Kivalina earlier this year and Colleen Swan sees some hope in that. Jewell’s visit was intended to raise awareness of Kivalina’s plight and to highlight that in the coming decades numerous other towns along US coastlines may face the same problem.


“More communities, more cities, more states, more tribes are going to have to deal with trying to help people who are being affected by climate change,” Christine Shearer says. “I think more lawsuits will be filed, and I think it might get to a point where fossil fuel companies might find it's less costly to settle than to keep fighting these lawsuits.”

Will the residents of Kivalina, Alaska be the first climate change refugees in the US?

See also:

Legal Battle Ends, But Seas Continue to Rise in Kivalina, Alaska

When Senators Sabotage Science | Roy Speckhardt

Inhofe is already off to a great start in 2015, spouting pseudo-science and degrading the effectiveness of his new committee with inaccurate diatribes against global warming. Just this week, he made a speech on the Senate floor lambasting the "hysteria" surrounding climate change, while also "disproving" claims that the earth is getting warmer by bringing a snowball into the Senate chamber.

Obviously, Inhofe has a very hard time understanding the difference between changes in weather and changes in climate. And while he and others among the Religious Right may personally believe that the earth is fine due to their god's protection, most other Americans, both theistic and non-theistic, are extremely concerned with what the future holds if our federal government does not maintain a scientifically-accurate environmental policy.

While Inhofe might be the most powerful climate skeptic in Congress, he surely is not the only one. Senator Roger Wicker, a Religious Right politician that recently presided over the National Prayer Breakfast, voted against a resolution which stated that the Senate did not think global warming was a hoax. Senator Marco Rubio, a rising star who sits on the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, went as far as to say, "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying. And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it." Perhaps most shocking is the fact that around 30 percent of all U.S. Representatives deny or question the science behind climate change.

When Senators Sabotage Science | Roy Speckhardt

Here's What Happens When Evangelical Christians Debate Science

The stereotype of Evangelical Christians is that they are anti-science, and therefore don't believe in climate change. But in fact, they are deeply divided over environmental issues. A debate over climate change is raging in Evangelical churches, fueled by conflicting interpretations of Biblical scripture.

Among the most active groups in this debate is the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). Founded in 1993, its defining document is the Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation, which affirms basic Evangelical tenets such as the "full authority of Scriptures" while also rejecting nature worship and positing stewardship of God's creation as the Biblical rationale for environmentalism.

Although EEN is primarily an educational outreach organization, it has become increasingly active in politics. In 1996, the group helped wage a successful campaign to prevent congressional Republicans from weakening the Endangered Species Act, which the EEN called the "Noah's Ark of our day." More recently, the group has emerged as a prominent voice in the Florida gubernatorial race.

[,,,]
That kind of language is offensive to conservative Evangelicals, who feel that equating environmentalism with the "pro-life" movement diminishes their campaign against abortion. And, despite the caveats expressed by the EEN, the group's rhetoric, to conservative ears, has distinct undertones of nature-worship.

In 2005, conservative Evangelicals responded to the EEN by forming the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. The group's national spokesperson, theologian E. Calvin Beisner, has described the environmental movement as "the greatest threat to Western civilization" because it combines "the utopian vision of Marxism, the scientific facade of secular humanism, and the religious fanaticism of jihad" into a pseudo-religion that undermines Christianity.

Here's What Happens When Evangelical Christians Debate Science

​The Climate March: Will It Be a Call to Arms For the Earth, Or Are More Radical Actions Needed? | Alternet

On September 21, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to march in New York and other cities across the globe to pressure world leaders to take more aggressive action on global warming. The organizers of the People's Climate March believe it will be one of the biggest social-change marches in history.

The march precedes a United Nations Climate Summit — a meeting of world leaders in New York — by two days. Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary General has said he hopes the summit will inject momentum in reaching a global deal on greatly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2015, when leaders will convene again in Paris.

Organizers think the demonstration will send a message to the assembled world powers that swift and dynamic action must be taken (China and India will not be represented).

But not everyone in the enviornmental and progressive movement thinks the organized march is the best way to create the needed social change. Chris Hedges, the activist journalist who writes for the news website Truthdig, likens the rally, which will be nowhere near the United Nations building, to a big “climate-change street fair” and laments that anyone can join. This means organizations such as the Climate Group and the Environmental Defense Fund, which include chemical, banking and oil interests among their members and supporters, will be represented at the march.

“These faux environmental organizations are designed to neutralize resistance,” says Hedges. “And their presence exposes the march’s failure to adopt a meaningful agenda or pose a genuine threat to power.”

​The Climate March: Will It Be a Call to Arms For the Earth, Or Are More Radical Actions Needed? | Alternet

Though Scorned by Colleagues, a Climate-Change Skeptic Is Unbowed - NYTimes.com

My one question that I would ask Mr Christy would be this (and this is based on what is presented in this article): why take a chance? If I understand his position correctly, temperature trends are moving upward but at a slower pace than predicted (and I have read articles addressing this but do not remember all the science stuff), doesn't that still make for troubling times ahead?

"By contrast, Dr. Christy argues that reining in carbon emissions is both futile and unnecessary, and that money is better spent adapting to what he says will be moderately higher temperatures. Among other initiatives, he said, the authorities could limit development in coastal and hurricane-prone areas, expand flood plains, make manufactured housing more resistant to tornadoes and high winds, and make farms in arid regions less dependent on imported water — or move production to rainier places."

This to me seems to let or allow "polluters" (for lack of a better word) off the hook for "damages" they "cause." Whether intentional or not, his research and contributions to contrarian literature, is being used to counter legislation and policy aimed at curbing future potential damage to our environment and climate
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John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says he remembers the morning he spotted a well-known colleague at a gathering of climate experts.

“I walked over and held out my hand to greet him,” Dr. Christy recalled. “He looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Come on, shake hands with me.’ And he said, ‘No.’ ”

Dr. Christy is an outlier on what the vast majority of his colleagues consider to be a matter of consensus: that global warming is both settled science and a dire threat. He regards it as neither. Not that the earth is not heating up. It is, he says, and carbon dioxide spewed from power plants, automobiles and other sources is at least partly responsible.

But in speeches, congressional testimony and peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, he argues that predictions of future warming have been greatly overstated and that humans have weathered warmer stretches without perishing. Dr. Christy’s willingness to publicize his views, often strongly, has also hurt his standing among scientists who tend to be suspicious of those with high profiles. His frequent appearances on Capitol Hill have almost always been at the request of Republican legislators opposed to addressing climate change.

“I detest words like ‘contrarian’ and ‘denier,’ ” he said. “I’m a data-driven climate scientist. Every time I hear that phrase, ‘The science is settled,’ I say I can easily demonstrate that that is false, because this is the climate — right here. The science is not settled.”



Though Scorned by Colleagues, a Climate-Change Skeptic Is Unbowed - NYTimes.com

Sen. Brandon Smith goes to Mars - YouTube

So does science really matter? Take a listen to this short video clip, this is a real, elected government official (twice) in the Kentucky Senate.


Let this sink in for a moment,,,

Maybe I should be asking WTH happened to critical thinking?

“I don’t see you as being one of the enemies. I know you’ve got a very tough job to do. As you sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and the constituents and stuff behind us. I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but >>>I will simply point out that I think in academia, we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of. So I think what we’re looking at is something much greater than what we’re gonna do.”

Seriously, "[n]obody will dispute that." You sure about that Mr. Smith?

A very simple, and I do mean simple enough a five year old could do it, search of this question, "What is the Temperature of Mars" gives us this lovely answer:

Mars's atmosphere is about 100 times thinner than Earth's. Without a "thermal blanket," Mars can't retain any heat energy. On average, the temperature on Mars is about minus 80 degrees F (minus 60 degrees C). In winter, near the poles temperatures can get down to minus 195 degrees F (minus 125 degrees C). A summer day on Mars may get up to 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) near the equator, but at night the temperature can plummet to about minus 100 degrees F (minus 73 C). Frost forms on the rocks at night, but as dawn approaches and the air gets warmer, the frost turns to vapor, and there is 100 percent humidity until it evaporates.

And before y'all jump on the "thermal blanket" and the Mars atmosphere being made up of carbon dioxide, consider this from Phil Plait

Ironically, if Mars ever did have the same temperature as Earth, it would be due to global warming from the greenhouse effect. The atmosphere of the Red Planet is less than 1 percent as thick as Earth’s, but it’s mostly carbon dioxide. That gas raises the planet’s temperature a few degrees. On Earth, given our distance from the Sun and other factors, the average temperature should hover around freezing. Thanks to greenhouse gases like CO2, it’s far more clement … but since we’re adding huge amounts of carbon dioxide to our air, it won’t stay that way for much longer.

",,, [B]ut since we’re adding huge amounts of carbon dioxide to our air, it won’t stay that way for much longer." What Phil is referring to, by my best guestimation, is long term trends; not the change from year to year or even decade to decade. (Here's two more sciencey explanations that look at the dynamics of wind patterns and ocean surface temperature.

Just to close out this horrid example of human stupidity, a big thanks to Joe Sonka over at Leo Weekly for this gem of a video clip,,,



Sen. Brandon Smith goes to Mars - YouTube

Hagee: It Is Not Climate Change; It's The Imminent Return Of Jesus Christ | Right Wing Watch

The other day when I posted concerning Barney Frank and his decision to stay closeted concerning his atheism, I hypothesized concerning the Reich's anti-science stance:  Dominionists deny Climate Change because they want the "world to end" so they can all go to heaven.

Now I know some of my dear readers are thinking I have lost my marble or I was sensationalizing.  To wit I present to you Matthew Hagee.

As Hagee explained, the views put forth by scientists and experts on any subject are not to be believed if those views are at odds with what the Bible teaches. As such, the extreme weather events that the climate has been experiencing are not the result of climate change but are rather signs of the End Times and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

,,,So we have a decision to make: do we believe what an environmentalist group says and choose to live in a world where we're attempting to make everything as clean in the air as possible, or do we believe what the Bible says, that these things were going to happen and that rather than try to clean up all of the air and solve all of the problems of the world by eliminating factories, we should start to tell people about Jesus Christ who is to return?":

A prime example of the (why of the) Reich's anti-science stance in regards to Climate Change which is grounded in their interpretation of Matthew 24:37: "And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man." (ASV)

A favorite passage when discussing not only unadulterated End-Times bullshit but also heavily relied upon in regards to Nephilim eschatology as well (which falls under what I call Nephilim Scripted and it ties directly into the Dominionist ideology and the 7 Mountains Mandate.)


Hagee: It Is Not Climate Change; It's The Imminent Return Of Jesus Christ | Right Wing Watch

GOP Congressman: 'Foolish' To Think Humans Can Cause Climate Change (VIDEO)

"Then why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Were there men that were causing -- were there cars running around at that point that were causing global warming? No," Miller concluded. "The climate has changed since Earth was created."
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Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) said Monday that it is "foolish" to believe humans can cause climate change.

MSNBC host Richard Lui had asked Miller if he thought messaging against man-made climate change would be detrimental to Republicans' 2014 and 2016 election prospects. Lui cited a poll of Florida voters who said that on the issue of climate change they trusted scientists over Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who does not believe human activity contributes to global warming, by a margin of 56 to 33 percent.

"Well, I think anybody would answer a poll and say that they believe the scientists, but you have to understand that it is not settled science," Miller said. "The issue of climate change has been happening for a long time, and for us to be able to think that we, as matter of fact, can change what's going on right now to any substantive measure is really kind of foolish in my opinion."

Miller argued that the climate has been changing for centuries and that scientists, whether they believe human activity contributes to climate change or not, acknowledge that the issue is not settled.

GOP Congressman: 'Foolish' To Think Humans Can Cause Climate Change (VIDEO)

ADDENDUM::House Votes To Deny Climate Science And Ties Pentagon's Hands On Climate Change | ThinkProgress

One ramification of denying science, specifically climate science . "Sea level rise impacting naval bases. Climate change altering natural disaster response. Drought influenced by climate change in the Middle East and Africa leading to conflicts over food and water — as in, for instance, Syria."

In other words, the Pentagon is concerned about the following national security issues: 1] oil supplies being cut off, making the transporting of troops and machines difficult. 2] local or regional wars, in "areas of interest" to the US, over food and water. 3] Loss of property vital to infrastructure such as farmlands, storage facilities, airports and/or sea ports.

The attitude displayed by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) et al in ignoring Pentagon concerns is reminiscent of the article I posted in March

To be most effective in spreading their message to the public to influence opinion, staffers in these groups "publish books, they give congressional testimony, they go around and make speeches, they serve as sources for newspapers, they write op-eds," Brulle said.

"It's based on a political strategy, which is to develop these arguments and get them out into the public," he said, adding that the environmental movement doesn't have equivalent think tanks. The total impact is hard to tell, but only 46 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence the world is warming, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a 2013 Pew study.

A political strategy funded by 

,,,top-tier conservative think tanks in Washington, such as the AEI and Heritage Foundation, which focus on a range of issues, as well as more obscure organisations such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the John Locke Foundation.

Funding also went to groups that took on climate change denial as a core mission – such as the Heartland Institute, which held regular conclaves dedicated to undermining the United Nations climate panel’s reports, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which tried and failed to prosecute a climate scientist, Michael Mann, for academic fraud.

“I call it the climate-change counter movement,” Brulle, told the Guardian. “It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.” And we don’t even know who’s behind it. The majority of the funders, about 75 percent, channeled their money in such a way that Brulle was unable to uncover their identities.

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With a mostly party-line vote on Thursday, the House of Representatives passed an amendment sponsored by Rep. David McKinley (R-WV) that seeks to prevent the Department of Defense from using funding to address the national security impacts of climate change.

“You can’t change facts by ignoring them,” said Mike Breen, Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project, and leader of the clean energy campaign, Operation Free. “This is like trying to lose 20 pounds by smashing your bathroom scale.”

The full text of McKinley’s amendment reads:

None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to implement the U.S. Global Change Research Program National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, the United Nation’s Agenda 21 sustainable development plan, or the May 2013 Technical Update of the Social Cost of Carbon for Regulatory Impact Analysis Under Executive Order

In other words, the House just tried to write climate denial into the Defense Department’s budget. “The McKinley amendment would require the Defense Department to assume that the cost of carbon pollution is zero,” Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) said in a letter to their colleagues before the vote. “That’s science denial at its worst and it fails our moral obligation to our children and grandchildren.”

The amendment forces the Defense Department to ignore the findings and recommendations of the National Climate Assessment and the IPCC’s latest climate assessment, specifically with regard to the national security impacts of climate change. It would also do the same for the Social Cost of Carbon, which provides a framework for rulemakers to take into account the societal, security, and economic costs associated with emitting more carbon dioxide.

House Votes To Deny Climate Science And Ties Pentagon's Hands On Climate Change | ThinkProgress

AUDIO: Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Don't Want Kids To Learn About Climate | Mother Jones

Please explain how $10 billion in agricultural loss is hyperbole? It's almost as if they want to bring on their own mini Armageddon. Oh, wait they do!!

Two things that no one can deny, no matter how you want to slice it or dice it - global warming is continuing at an unprecedented pace and much of it has been due to human activity.

Second, we will never have political consensus but among CLIMATE SCIENTISTS (notice the key words there), 97% of climate papers that took a position on the issue, said humans are causing global warming.

So why are POLITICIANS handicapping a child academically by eliminating good climate science education? Why are POLITICIANS, after 30 minutes of discussion, destroying a year's worth of work by SCIENCE EDUCATORS? You know people who actually understand the stuff they teach.

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes. The challenge, rather, appears to be how to effectively communicate this fact to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists."

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Earlier this week, reports the National Center for Science Education, a committee of the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted 10 to 1 to reject a set of proposed "Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science" that have already been adopted by the state board of education. "A rejection of the proposed education standards by the legislature is unprecedented and at this point the real impact and implications are unknown," says the Oklahoma Science Teachers Association.

"You basically have a couple of members on this committee who are second-guessing a panel of science educators who spent more than a year working on these standards," says Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education. "And on the basis of a half an hour hearing, they decide to block what science educators in Oklahoma overwhelmingly regard as a major advance for science education in Oklahoma's public schools."

It's clear that the issue of climate change content was a central reasons for the rejection. The Oklahoma science standards were, in significant part, based on the Next Generation Science Standards, which discuss climate change (and were rejected for that reason by the state of Wyoming earlier this year). And in legislative hearings, notes Climate Progress, Oklahoma Republican lawmaker Mark McCullough criticized the proposed Oklahoma science standards' references to "the climate" and "human impacts on the environment." McCullough suggested there has been "hyberbole relative to climate change" and asked if the standards "could potentially be utilized to inculcate into some pretty young impressionable minds…a fairly one-sided view as to that controversial subject, a subject that is very much in dispute among even the academics."

AUDIO: Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Don't Want Kids To Learn About Climate | Mother Jones

How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American

"It's based on a political strategy,,,"

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Searching for a reason major climate change legislation hasn't passed Congress yet?

You could do worse than start looking around Washington, D.C., with its endless think tanks, lobbying firms and trade groups, many of which have swung into action in the past to block such bills and stand ready to do so in the future.

[,,,]
The study's author, Robert Brulle, a sociology and environmental science professor at Drexel University, takes a systematic look at what he calls the climate change counter-movement (CCCM), made up of groups that Brulle says have an average annual income of just above $900 million, although much of that money is not even spent on climate change-related activities and is used for other issues.

To be most effective in spreading their message to the public to influence opinion, staffers in these groups "publish books, they give congressional testimony, they go around and make speeches, they serve as sources for newspapers, they write op-eds," Brulle said.

"It's based on a political strategy, which is to develop these arguments and get them out into the public," he said, adding that the environmental movement doesn't have equivalent think tanks. The total impact is hard to tell, but only 46 percent of Republicans believe there's solid evidence the world is warming, compared with 84 percent of Democrats, according to a 2013 Pew study.

[,,,]
"It's like guerilla warfare; all you can hope for is to stay [in the debate] long enough for people to wake up," said Richard Lindzen, a professor emeritus of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who said he believes think tanks have "relatively little" influence over the climate debate.

[,,,]
She conceded that she hadn't read the study but said the Drexel researcher seemed to be more "systematic and intellectual honest about the whole thing" than previous researchers on the topic had been. She said that DonorsTrust does not reveal its account holders, many of them individuals from the business world, but said that "there are plenty of good reasons to be anonymous" when giving money.

She said that groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, which partly works on climate change and environmental issues, are on a "jihad against capitalism," but her group helps its donors "protect their legacy of liberty."

How Money Changes Climate Debate - Scientific American

Pat Robertson: Global warming is a scam because there are no SUVs on Jupiter | The Raw Story

Televangelist Pat Robertson pointed to the cold U.S. weather on Tuesday — and the fact that there were no “SUVs driving around in Jupiter” — to assert that global warming was a scam created by scientists.

“The inconvenient truth is it’s getting cold,” Robertson said, riffing off the title of Al Gore’s climate change documentary. “And some parts of America are colder than Mars! Why? We’ve got a special story today about how come we could very well be entering another little ice age.”

Later in the show, the TV preacher laughed and noted that the Russian-flagged ship Akademik Shokalskiy had been stuck in ice near Antarctica while trying to research global warming.

“There’s just one problem,” he said. “The Earth isn’t getting warmer. In fact, it’s because of the Sun. The Sun is now showing signs that we’re headed for something very, very different: global cooling.”

Pat Robertson: Global warming is a scam because there are no SUVs on Jupiter | The Raw Story

‘Amateur paleontologist’ Newt Gingrich says a hotter planet may be just fine | The Raw Story

An amateur paleontologist, but yet does not believe in evolution?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) engaged in some “snow-trolling” Monday night, dismissing the idea of climate change by suggesting it would be arrogant to think the most suitable temperature for life on Earth is already known.

“I’m an amateur paleontologist,” Gingrich told Crossfire co-host Van Jones, before mentioning his own observations at exhibits in Chicago and Wisconsin and asking, “What kind of hubris does it take to say, ‘I know exactly what this planet’s temperature ought to be and I’m gonna manage it to that effect’?”

Gingrich did not mention that as recently as 2011, astronomers found that a planet considered compatible with Earth “would have a very nice temperature” around 70 degrees Farenheit.

‘Amateur paleontologist’ Newt Gingrich says a hotter planet may be just fine | The Raw Story

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones

"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger (PDF), in a passage that might have been referring to climate change denial—the persistent rejection, on the part of so many Americans today, of what we know about global warming and its human causes. But it was too early for that—this was the 1950s—and Festinger was actually describing a famous case study in psychology.

Festinger and several of his colleagues had infiltrated the Seekers, a small Chicago-area cult whose members thought they were communicating with aliens—including one, "Sananda," who they believed was the astral incarnation of Jesus Christ. The group was led by Dorothy Martin, a Dianetics devotee who transcribed the interstellar messages through automatic writing.

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Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea swallowed much of the United States. The disciples even went so far as to remove brassieres and rip zippers out of their trousers—the metal, they believed, would pose a danger on the spacecraft.

Festinger and his team were with the cult when the prophecy failed. First, the "boys upstairs" (as the aliens were sometimes called) did not show up and rescue the Seekers. Then December 21 arrived without incident. It was the moment Festinger had been waiting for: How would people so emotionally invested in a belief system react, now that it had been soundly refuted?

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And since Festinger's day, an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience has further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions. This tendency toward so-called "motivated reasoning" helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal: climate change, vaccines, "death panels," the birthplace and religion of the president (PDF), and much else. It would seem that expecting people to be convinced by the facts flies in the face of, you know, the facts.

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones

Steve King: We might not notice ‘if sea levels go up 4 or 6 inches’ | The Raw Story

Irony = Steve King!! Most of the folks who deny climate change and its relationship to disappearing glaciers and polar ice, severe storm patterns, oceanic acidification, and rising sea level are the very same people who believe in a literal interpretation of the Deluge described in the Bible. The sense I get from "listening" not only to King, but many others, he is incapable of grasping science and fears it because it directly challenges his religious and political ideologies. In his case it is easier to just believe than to think critically. Unfortunately, they demand we believe the same fallacies, to our doom and possible extinction.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) on Tuesday managed to insult both religious Americans and climate scientists while denying the existence of global warming.

During the kickoff for the Americans for Prosperity-sponsored “Bruce Braley Big Government Tour” in Fort Dodge, King explained that attempts to fight climate change were unnecessary and hurting the economy, according to The Messenger.

“It is not proven, it’s not science,” he insisted. “It’s more of a religion than a science.”

The Republican congressman said that scientists are too focused on the bad impacts of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Steve King: We might not notice ‘if sea levels go up 4 or 6 inches’ | The Raw Story

16 Of Your Favorite Things That Climate Change Is Totally Screwing Up | ThinkProgress

When people talk about “climate impacts,” the images that usually come to mind are broiling heat waves, drought-parched creek beds, dangerous storm surges, the slowly-but-surely rising sea. These things can seem distant and unlikely to affect most people’s day-to-day lives, but there is growing evidence that the reality of climate change will strike close to home.

Below is a list of things of things that will be negatively affected by climate change that may not immediately come to mind when someone says “the greenhouse effect”:

16 Of Your Favorite Things That Climate Change Is Totally Screwing Up | ThinkProgress

State of Climate Report Reveals 'Unprecedented' Arctic Melting | Common Dreams

"Our planet as a whole is becoming a warmer place," said Kathryn D. Sullivan, Acting Administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

(Credit: NOAA) Citing climbing greenhouse gases, rising seas, record-breaking temperatures and a rapidly melting Arctic, the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) annual "State of the Climate in 2012," released Tuesday by NOAA, revealed a planet undergoing dramatic environmental change.

“Many of the events that made 2012 such an interesting year are part of the long-term trends we see in a changing and varying climate," added Sullivan. "The findings are striking."

Examining such climate indicators as greenhouse gas concentrations, temperature of the lower and upper atmosphere, cloud cover, sea surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean salinity, sea ice extent and snow cover, the report was compiled by 384 scientists from 52 countries.

Most notably, the scientists found that the "unprecedented change" occurring in the Arctic was the "major story of 2012."

State of Climate Report Reveals 'Unprecedented' Arctic Melting | Common Dreams