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The past decade has seen some truly clever media tricks being used against climate science. The most successful one was the so-called “Climategate” scandal of 2009. You can see its effects on the Gallup poll, above.

Climategate was a very successful “meme“, a term created by Richard Dawkins in analogy with “gene” – a meme is a reproductive unit in the mediaspace. It works like a virus, and, as a virus, it tends to lose its potency when the system develops ways to fight it. So, the climategate meme lost potency in a few years after its introduction and the Gallup curve started going up again.

2012 saw the birth of a new and powerful anti-science meme: the “climate change has stopped” one, created by David Rose with an article in the Daily mail. The effect was less pronounced than that of the Climategate meme, nevertheless the idea of the “pause” went viral and it is probably the origin of the drop/stasis in the Gallup curve from 2013 to 2014.

But also the “pause” meme has lost potency; with 2015 on track to become the hottest year ever recorded, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain that climate change has stopped. So, with the Paris conference on climate approaching, it is probably the right time for a new anti-science meme appearing in the media.

Not surprisingly, the media is all abuzz with the idea of a”mini ice age” that should occur at some moment in the 2030s. Look at the results of a “Google Trends” search. Remarkable, indeed!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peabody Energy to White House: Greenhouse Gas a ‘Non-Existent Harm’

July 15, 2015

Peabody Energy to White House: Greenhouse Gas a ‘Non-Existent Harm’

In an official submission to the White House earlier this year, U.S. coal giant Peabody Energy claims that greenhouse gas is a “non-existent harm” and a “benign gas that is essential to all life.”

The March 2015 submission from Peabody further claims that “while the benefits of carbon dioxide are proven, the alleged risks of climate change are contrary to observed data, are based on admitted speculation, and lack adequate scientific basis.”

It has become increasingly rare, especially in the last few years as countries and corporations have begun to take the issue of climate change more seriously, to see a publicly traded company like Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) making claims that are so contrary to the well-documented scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are negatively impacting our climate, health and way of living.

While there are thousands of peer-reviewed scientific documents available on the impacts of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, the Peabody climate change document relies heavily on claims made in newspaper opinion articles and by organizations with known connections to the fossil fuel industry.

An analysis of the 304 footnote citations in the Peabody document finds that opinion articles published in media outlets, primarily the Wall Street Journal, were cited as supporting evidence 41 times ,and groups with historical ties to the fossil fuel industry (e.g. Cato Institute, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the Global Warming Policy Foundation) were cited 64 times.

Articles cited from peer-reviewed scientific journals made up only 8% of the evidence cited in Peabody’s arguments:

Here are some of the key quotes from the Peabody climate change document:

“There are no demonstrated foreseeable effects of any GHG emissions.” (pg.3)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lab rats and the corruption of how we count

July 6, 2015

Lab rats and the corruption of how we count

There’s an old joke about lab rats in which the teller says he or she secretly suspects that all lab rats are prone to cancer and so all research about the risk of cancer in humans based on tests in rats is likely useless.

The Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering, a European-based research group, thought it would look into such a possibility.

Last week the group released its findings and that joke became a reality. The diet fed to most lab rats is so laced with pesticides, heavy metals, genetically engineered feed and other man-made contaminants that lab rats worldwide are indeed at much higher risk of developing cancer and other diseases and disabilities just from the food they are reared on.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that certain substances thought likely to cause cancer in rats and possibly humans now somehow don’t. Rather, the study calls into question practically all safety tests which rely on these rodents. And, in fact, it suggests that the dangers of many substances and genetically engineered plants may have been underplayed.

The researchers point out that some studies purporting to demonstrate the safety of genetically engineered foods fed significant amounts of such GE foods to control groups of rats. These rats should not have gotten any GE food in order that their health profile could be compared accurately to those intentionally fed GE food.

And, even if the rats in the control groups don’t ingest the chemical or plant being tested–as is the case in a proper study–they still get sick at abnormally high rates due to their diet. That can make substances being tested appear safer than they truly are because it is more difficult to sort out which effects in the test group are due to the substance or plant being tested.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation’s collapse by 2040

June 20, 2015

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation’s collapse by 2040

New scientific models supported by the British government’s Foreign Office show that if we don’t change course, in less than three decades industrial civilisation will essentially collapse due to catastrophic food shortages, triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis, and political instability.

Before you panic, the good news is that the scientists behind the model don’t believe it’s predictive. The model does not account for the reality that people will react to escalating crises by changing behavior and policies.

But even so, it’s a sobering wake-up call, which shows that business-as-usual guarantees the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it: our current way of life is not sustainable.

The new models are being developed at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), through a project called the ‘Global Resource Observatory’ (GRO).

The GRO is chiefly funded by the Dawe Charitable Trust, but its partners include the British government’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO); British bank, Lloyds of London; the Aldersgate Group, the environment coalition of leaders from business, politics and civil society; the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries; Africa Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the University of Wisconsin.

Disruption risk

This week, Lloyds released a report for the insurance industry assessing the risk of a near-term “acute disruption to the global food supply.” Research for the project was led by Anglia Ruskin University’s GSI, and based on its GRO modelling initiative.

The report explores the scenario of a near-term global food supply disruption, considered plausible on the basis of past events, especially in relation to future climate trends. The global food system, the authors find, is “under chronic pressure to meet an ever-rising demand, and its vulnerability to acute disruptions is compounded by factors such as climate change, water stress, ongoing globalisation and heightening political instability.”

Three steps from crisis

Lloyd’s scenario analysis shows that food production across the planet could be significantly undermined due to a combination of just three catastrophic weather events, leading to shortfalls in the production of staple crops, and ensuing price spikes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Stop oilsands expansion, Canadian and U.S. researchers say

June 11, 2015

Stop oilsands expansion, Canadian and U.S. researchers say

Group cites concerns about carbon pollution, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights

More than 100 Canadian and U.S. researchers are calling on Canada to end expansion of its oilsands, for 10 reasons that they describe as “grounded in science.”

“Based on evidence raised across our many disciplines, we offer a unified voice calling for a moratorium on new oilsands projects,” said a statement issued Wednesday by the group, led by academics at the University of Waterloo, Simon Fraser University and the University of Arizona.

Read the full statement and 10 reasons

The statement, signed by a range of researchers including biologists, political scientists, physicists, economists and geographers, including a Nobel Prize winner and several Order of Canada recipients, is being sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, MPs and the Canadian media.

The group says it has requested meetings with federal politicians to discuss the science behind their reasons in favour of the moratorium. Those include concerns about carbon emissions making climate change worse, hampering the shift to clean energy, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights, and potential effects on international policy. The researchers also cited evidence that stopping oilsands expansion won’t hurt the economy.

Marc Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University who co-authored the statement, said the group is targeting the oilsands primarily because most of them are Canadian.

“So of course you try to clean up your own backyard before you start pointing your finger at others,” Jaccard said.

Carbon deal signed

He added that the scientists are not calling for existing oilsands projects to shut down — they just don’t want new ones to start up.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” …

June 2, 2015

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” …

Corruption Is Destroying Basic Science

Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine are the two most prestigious medical journals in the world.

It is therefore striking that their chief editors have both publicly written that corruption is undermining science.

The editor in chief of Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote last month:

Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, “poor methods get results”. The Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have now put their reputational weight behind an investigation into these questionable research practices. The apparent endemicity [i.e. pervasiveness within the scientific culture] of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Unions representing federal scientists protest ‘partisan interference’

May 19, 2015

Unions representing federal scientists protest ‘partisan interference’

Representatives from Canada’s major public sector unions, including thePublic Service Alliance of Canada, the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada will protest “the muzzling of Canada’s public scientists and partisan interference in the development of public science” by holding “mobilization and information activities” at Tunney’s Pasture.

According to the advisory, similar events slated to take place in Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver.

Back on the Hill, the Commons Chamber may be shuttered for the week-long Victoria Day constituency break, but Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and International Trade Minister Ed Fast are still slated to join representatives from Canada’s beef and pork sectors in the House Foyer later this morning to take questions on the latest rejection of US meat labelling requirements by the World Trade Organization.

WTO rejects final U.S. appeal on meat labelling

In Toronto, meanwhile, New Democrat Leader Tom Mulcair, who will join the “McGill Four” MPs — Charmaine Borg, Matthew Dubé, Mylène Freeman and Laurin Liu — for a panel discussion after speaking to theMcGill Alumni Association.

Also in Toronto today: Finance Minister Joe Oliver, who will be the keynote speaker at the 2015 PCMA Private Capital Markets Conference, and Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, who will do the honours on behalf ofMinister of State for Sport Bal Gosal at the SEEDS Orientation Event

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Essentials of Resilience in a World of Growing Chaos

April 14, 2015

The Essentials of Resilience in a World of Growing Chaos

By now, it ought to go without saying that the evidence is in – after all, global warming has been recognized by scientists for decades. The accelerated release of “greenhouse gases” since the dawn of the Industrial Age is now causing accelerated warming of the planet with multiple interacting deleterious effects. We just don’t have time to argue the scientific consensus vs. the propaganda of the growth economists and industrial apologists. It is what it obviously is. Far more important challenges than “climate deniers” lay ahead. Resilience will be the key to meeting those challenges.

The most urgent question today is what must be done now and in the near future to achieve major mitigation of carbon emissions. The second most urgent question is: What can we do to adapt to the inevitable effects of climate disruption already “in the pipeline”?Mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand, although adaptation without mitigation is akin to seeking a more comfortable collective suicide. Without rapidly reducing the release of greenhouse gases, conditions will become so extreme that humans and many other species will be unable to adapt and survive. The species-extinction rate is already extreme by evolutionary measure.

Mitigation and Adaptation

So, resilience must be understood as the ability to both mitigate the sources of climate change and adapt to climate disruption in just the right balance. This must be done in the context of improving knowledge of the climate changes that are already occurring. We know that some of the processes are also accelerating because of interactive positive feedback loops. But the methane and CO2 releases from nascent arctic permafrost melting are not yet accounted for in the current IPCC climate change models. We need to know and immediately act upon the most strategically important climate disrupting factors. We must choose those factors with both the greatest impact on climate and the most potential for rapid and radical mitigation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Shale Gas and Fracking: The science behind the controversy

April 11, 2015

Shale Gas and Fracking: The science behind the controversy

Anyone looking for a comprehensive review of the controversies associated with fracking is going to be disappointed by this short book. After having ploughed almost all of its 170 pages I found, near the back, the following sentence:

“I won’t go through all of the contested issues, because the chapters in the book provide a basis to carve out your own analysis looking at some of the main peer reviewed papers”.

So the message is that if you want to make up your mind about shale then go to the peer reviewed literature. The implied message in this, made explicit at times, is that many opponents of the shale gas industry don’t do this and many members of the public rely too heavily on rumour and panicked reports leading to what Michael Stephenson claims is a low quality to the public policy debate. The public policy debate needs to be guided by academic scientists in peer reviewed papers…..like him.

As he writes, towards the end of this book:

“In this book I hope I have shown how a controversial subject can be tackled with science. There are various definitions of science around. One that I like is “…a systemic endeavour that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanation and predictions about the universe.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fred Singer Recalls Silly Attack On Consensus And Naomi Oreskes By Klaus-Martin Schulte, Lord Monckton’s Endocrinologist Front Man

March 30, 2015

Fred Singer Recalls Silly Attack On Consensus And Naomi Oreskes By Klaus-Martin Schulte, Lord Monckton’s Endocrinologist Front Man

By the 1950s, smoking’s cause of disease had risen to strong scientific consensus, but Big Tobacco needed an illusion of scientific controversy to keep the public in doubt. As seen in the new film Merchants of Doubt, they developed superb marketing tactics copied by others, including the fossil fuel industry and allies.

The scientific consensus on human causation of climate change is just as strong as that on smoking, so the same tactics are used against it, plus Internet-amplified harassment of scientists. Fred Singer recently tried to revive a nearly-forgotten 2007 attack on climate consensus, one of the silliest and least competent, entangled with plagiarism and falsification. A revisit of this episode may be instructive, as consensus (not unanimity) is important enough that people keep challenging it.

UC San Diego geoscientist and science historian Naomi Oreskes’ 2004 Scienceessay had examined 928 abstracts of peer-reviewed science papers and happened to find none that clearly rejected the consensus. She stated the well-known fact that real rejections would say so, whereas people rarely bother to reaffirm mainstream science in the limited text of abstracts.

The result had been ineptly attacked in 2005 by Benny Peiser. His claims of 34 contradictions were demolished by Tim Lambert and others in Peiser’s 34 abstracts, Peiser watch, Peiser admits to making a mistake and Peiser admits he was 97% wrong. Peiser used a slightly different database query, changed criteria and then misclassified many climate abstracts as rejects. It is easy for non-experts to misinterpret abstracts and assessing climate abstracts is a skill for which social (sports) anthropologists are rarely known. By March 2006 he entirely withdrew his complaint. Peiser’s attack was demonstrated inept at best, but not a barrier to his later job prospects at the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). He never apologized, but his “work” resurfaced in 2007, the main topic here.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The View From Outside

March 19, 2015

The View From Outside

Recently I’ve been reacquainting myself with the stories of Clark Ashton Smith. Though he’s largely forgotten today, Smith was one of the leading lights of Weird Tales magazine during its 1930s golden age, ranking with H.P Lovecraft and Robert Howard as a craftsman of fantasy fiction. Like Lovecraft, Howard, and most of the other authors in the Weird Tales stable, Smith was an outsider; he spent his life in a small town in rural California; he was roundly ignored by the literary scene of his day, and returned the favor with gusto. With the twilight of the pulps, Smith’s work was consigned to the dustbin of literary history. It was revived briefly during the fantasy boom of the 1970, only to sink from sight again when the fantasy genre drowned in a swamp of faux-medieval clichés thereafter.

There’s no shortage of reasons to give Smith another look today, starting with his mastery of image and atmosphere and the wry humor that shaped the best of his mature work. Still, that’s a theme for another time, and possibly another forum. The theme that’s relevant to this blog is woven into one of Smith’s classic stories, The Dark Age. First published in 1938, it’s among the earliest science fiction stories I know of that revolves around an organized attempt to preserve modern science through a future age of barbarism.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Science of Peak Oil

March 11, 2015

The Science of Peak Oil

One of the many barbs often pointed at peak oil proponents is that they are constantly shifting the goal posts. Peak oilers are accused of changing the definition of what peak oil actually means, therefore the entire concept of oil production peaking is rubbish. Far from a valid criticism however, this is actually a scientific virtue. If any scientist dogmatically stuck with a rigid theory as the data repeatedly proved that theory to be incorrect then that would be cause for great concern. The fact however that peak oil theory has developed markedly since Hubbert Peak Theory in 1956 shows that peak oil proponents are willing to listen to the data and change accordingly. This is the basis for the entire scientific method: form a question, create a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, analyse the results and alter the hypothesis if required and then test again. This is the most successful framework that humanity has developed so far in order to further human scientific knowledge.

The core logic of science is simple: testing ideas with evidence. It is also worth noting that science is not static. It is constantly evolving. As the University of California, Berkley’s Understanding Science website states:

“…scientific conclusions are always revisable if warranted by the evidence. Scientific investigations are often ongoing, raising new questions even as old ones are answered.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Internal Documents Reveal Extensive Industry Influence Over EPA’s National Fracking Study

March 3, 2015

Internal Documents Reveal Extensive Industry Influence Over EPA’s National Fracking Study

In 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an ambitious and highly consequential study of the risks that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses to American drinking water supplies.

“This is about using the best possible science to do what the American people expect the EPA to do – ensure that the health of their communities and families are protected,” Paul Anastas, Assistant Administrator for the agency’s Office of Research and Development, said in 2011.

But the EPA‘s study has been largely shaped and re-shaped by the very industry it is supposed to investigate, as energy company officials were allowed to edit planning documents, insisted on vetting agency contractors, and demanded to review federal scientist’s field notes, photographs and laboratory results prior to publication, according to a review by DeSmog of over 3,000 pages of previously undisclosed emails, confidential draft study plans and other internal documentsobtained through open records requests.

Company officials imposed demands so infeasible that the EPA ultimately dropped a key goal of the research, their plans to measure pollution levels before and after fracking at two new well sites, the documents show.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We have to stop filling and killing the oceans with plastic

March 1, 2015

We have to stop filling and killing the oceans with plastic

Eight million tonnes. That’s how much plastic we’re tossing into the oceans every year! University of Georgia environmental engineer Jenna Jambeck says it’s enough to line up five grocery bags of trash on every foot of coastline in the world.

A study published by Jambeck and colleagues in the journal Science on February 12 examined how 192 coastal countries disposed of plastic waste in 2010. The report, “Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean”, estimates that of 275 million tonnes of plastic generated, about eight million (based on a midpoint estimate of 4.8 million to 12.7 million tonnes) ends up in the seas — blown from garbage dumps into rivers and estuaries, discarded on beaches or along coastlines and carried to the oceans.

China tops the list of 20 countries responsible for 83 per cent of “mismanaged plastic” in the oceans, sending between 1.32 and 3.53 million tonnes into the seas. The U.S., which has better waste-management systems, is number 20 on the list,responsible for 0.04 to 0.11 tonnes. Some countries in the top 20 don’t even have formal waste-management systems. The fear is that, as human populations grow, the amount of plastic going into the oceans will increase dramatically if countries don’t improve waste-management systems and practices — and reduce the amount of plastic they produce and use.

Scientists don’t know where most plastic ends up or what overall effect it’s having on marine life and food supplies. They do know that massive islands of plastic and other waste — some as large as Saskatchewan — swirl in five gyres in the north and south Pacific, north and south Atlantic and Indian oceans. But that’s only a small amount of the total.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Harvard-Smithsonian Profited as Much as Willie Soon with Fossil Fuel Funding

February 28, 2015

Harvard-Smithsonian Profited as Much as Willie Soon with Fossil Fuel Funding

Both Harvard and the Smithsonian Institute are trying to shake off the controversy surrounding Willie Soon, but these esteemed organizations should not be let off the hook easily.

Earlier this week, documents revealed by the Guardian and New York Times provide irefutable evidence that climate denier Willie Soon and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophyics received more than $1 million in funding from fossil fuel companies to deliver scientific reports that called into question the scientific conclusion that climate change is the result of burning too much oil, coal and other carbon-emitting fuel sources.

Harvard quickly tried to distance themselves from the Soon scandal telling the Guardian that “Soon operated outside of the university.” This, despite the fact that Soon “carries a Harvard ID and uses a Harvard email address.”

The Smithsonian Institute also reacted quickly announcing that they have tasked their Inspector General to look into the ethical conduct of Dr. Soon.

“The Smithsonian is greatly concerned about the allegations surrounding Dr. Willie Soon’s failure to disclose funding sources for his climate change research,” they said in a statement shortly after the scandal broke over the weekend.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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