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Photo by NASA Goddard Space | CC BY 2.0

Politicians recently visiting western Montana’s Lolo Peak fire tried to put the blame for the fire on lawsuits filed by environmentalists. Montana’s US Senator Steve Daines did mention the role of climate change, but quickly went on to say that the climate has always changed.

Well, yes, for sure. Changes in Earth’s temperatures and resulting climate have often been driven by forces beyond human control, and many such changes occurred well before humans existed. These familiar natural forces have changed the climate from hot to cold and from cold to hot, all without a lick of help from man, woman or child.

For example, it’s become plain that large volcanic eruptions can cast killing chills across the planet, crushing crops and making people miserable. For another example, El Niño—perhaps the most widely known expression of natural variability—periodically releases ocean heat that has a rippling effect across much of the planet.

So, yes, Daines’ remark wasn’t entirely hot air. Natural forces are clearly capable of changing the climate.

A recent attention-getting study turned up evidence that an earlier planetary hot spell was driven by volcanic magma under an extensive Siberian coalfield. Geologists put that initial study to the test and have twice confirmed that the hot magma scorched the coal above, thereby releasing lots of carbon into the atmosphere, which then increased atmospheric and oceanic temperatures. The resulting heat created extinctions long before there were humans to blame.

It’s the real world out there, with more than one thing going on at a time, so it’s no shocker that the forms of natural variability don’t always act alone.

One recent study cites evidence that natural variability in the form of a sulfur-loaded volcanic eruption may have had its cooling influence on North America complicated by the warming influence of another natural variation, El Niño.

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

Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott’s ‘Misleading’ Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation

October 10, 2017

Climate Scientists Attack Tony Abbott’s ‘Misleading’ Speech to Global Warming Policy Foundation

Abbott told the contrarian Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) that rising carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning could be “beneficial” and compared acceptance of human-caused climate change to religion.

The GWPF, founded by former Thatcher government treasurer Lord Nigel Lawson, consistently pushes positions on climate change that fall well outside the established science.

The foundation, which claims to be bi-partisan but has accepted funding from many conservative figures, had declined requests from several specialist climate change media outlets to hear the Abbott lecture, claiming the speech “was not a media event.”

Dr. Benjamin Henley, a University of Melbourne scientist specializing in ancient climate change and climate models, who read the transcript, said: “It is precarious territory for a politician to enter the scientific boxing ring, with only a bible of conspiracy theories and misconstrued talking points in hand. His speech is full of falsehoods, miscomprehension, and basic untruths.”

Abbott lost the leadership of the conservative Liberal Party and, with it, the Prime Ministership, in September 2015 to the country’s current leader, Malcolm Turnbull.

Abbott’s public position on climate science has flip-flopped over the years. He once described the science as “absolute crap” but during office, claimed to accept the basic facts and said he took the issue seriously.

But he has also denied any link between rising temperatures and Australia’s bushfires, going against decades of research.

Abbott’s ‘Misleading’ Claims

Professor Steven Sherwood of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales refuted Abbott’s claim that climate models were wrong:

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

I Was an Exxon-Funded Climate Scientist

September 12, 2017

I Was an Exxon-Funded Climate Scientist

Photo by Mike Mozart | CC BY 2.0

ExxonMobil’s deliberate attempts to sow doubt on the reality and urgency of climate change and their donations to front groups to disseminate false information about climate change have been public knowledge for a long time, now.

Investigative reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon had its own scientists doing its own climate modeling as far back as the 1970s: science and modeling that was not only accurate, but that was being used to plan for the company’s future.

Now, a peer-reviewed study published August 23 has confirmed that what Exxon was saying internally about climate change was quantitatively very different from their public statements.

Specifically, researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes found that at least 80 percent of the internal documents and peer-reviewed publications they studied from between 1977 and 2014 were consistent with the state of the science – acknowledging that climate change is real and caused by humans, and identifying “reasonable uncertainties” that any climate scientist would agree with at the time.

Yet over 80 percent of Exxon’s editorial-style paid advertisements over the same period specifically focused on uncertainty and doubt, the study found.

The stark contrast between internally discussing cutting-edge climate research while externally conducting a climate disinformation campaign is enough to blow many minds. What was going on at Exxon?

I have a unique perspective – because I was there.

From 1995 to 1997, Exxon provided partial financial support for my master’s thesis, which focused on methane chemistry and emissions. I spent several weeks in 1996 as an intern at their Annandale research lab in New Jersey and years working on the collaborative research that resulted in three of the published studies referenced in Supran and Oreskes’ new analysis.

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

How Exxon Used the New York Times to Make You Question Climate Science

August 29, 2017

How Exxon Used the New York Times to Make You Question Climate Science

A breakthrough study from Harvard unearths the extent Exxon has gone to in order to destroy the public’s trust in climate change science.

Last week, Harvard University researchers Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes (of Merchants of Doubt fame) published the first peer-reviewed study comparing ExxonMobil’s internal and external communications on climate change.

The abstract of the Supran and Oreskes study shows that ExxonMobil’s own scientists and executives had a much sharper understanding of climate science than the company told the public (emphasis added):

“Accounting for expressions of reasonable doubt, 83 percent of peer-reviewed papers and 80 percent of internal documents acknowledge that climate change is real and human-caused, yet only 12 percent of advertorials do so, with 81 percent instead expressing doubt. We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science — by way of its scientists’ academic publications — but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public.”

As the Harvard authors credit, the advertorials came from a study published on PolluterWatch by our former colleague at Greenpeace, Cindy Baxter.

Cindy republished many of ExxonMobil’s New York Times advertorials back in 2015. This was right as investigative reporters at InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed the extent of knowledge among Exxon’s own scientists that burning fossil fuels caused unnatural global warming.

With these revelations in mind, Cindy recalled a peer-reviewed study in the journal Public Relations Review on “advertorials” or “op-ads” that Mobil Oil paid to have published in the New York Times. The authors of that study, Clyde Brown and Herbert Waltzer, reviewed 819 New York Times advertorials that Mobil placed “every Thursday” from 1985 to 2000.

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

“Hell to pay” if Trump targets EPA climate science, says U.S. Chamber official

February 21, 2017

“Hell to pay” if Trump targets EPA climate science, says U.S. Chamber official

A senior official with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned that if Trump tries to rescind the EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gasses, it will be a “huge, huge buzzsaw”.

A senior energy official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently warned that there will be “hell to pay” if the Trump administration tries to rescind the EPA’s science-based endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions.

In typical U.S. Chamber fashion, Christopher Guith dismissed current concerns about climate change as based on “religion” – not “scientific facts” – while speaking at a January 26th event in the coal state of Kentucky. Guith is the senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.

But Guith conceded that carbon dioxide emissions are likely to ultimately be regulated under the Clean Air Act. He also said that “soccer moms and soccer dads” will make the Trump administration pay if it goes after the EPA’s endangerment finding.

As predicted, Americans are taking to the streets in large numbers to defend science against attacks by the Trump administration, as seen on this photo that was posted on social.

Guith’s comments belie the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s official policy priorities for 2017, which include plans to, “Oppose EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases under the existing Clean Air Act, including the endangerment finding.”

His remarks came last last month during a question and answer session on the future of energy policy under the Trump administration at an event hosted by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. Guith’s comments were captured by a representative of the Energy and Policy Institute who attended the event.

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

For James Hansen, the Science Demands Activism on Climate

April 13, 2016

For James Hansen, the Science Demands Activism on Climate

Climate scientist James Hansen has crossed the classic divide between research and activism. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he responds to critics and explains why he believes the reality of climate change requires him to speak out.

Climate scientist James Hansen has been a prominent figure in the global climate conversation for more than 40 years. His 1988 congressional testimony on climate change helped introduce the problem of rising greenhouse gas emissions to the American public, and he has led study after study examining exactly how our world will change as a result of global warming.

Eight years ago, however, Hansen made the rare decision to begin engaging in climate activism, and he has since protested mountaintop removal in West Virginia and gotten arrested outside the White House in a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Milan Ilnyckyj/TarSandsAction

James Hansen

His actions have earned him both praise and criticism from the media and scientific community. Recent scientific endeavors of his — including a study last month that was publicized prior to being peer-reviewed — have also generated controversy.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360 last week, Hansen, former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, opened up about his unconventional career path, his frustration watching policymakers’ four decades of climate inaction, and what he believes the world could look like a century from now.

“I don’t think that I have been alarmist — maybe alarming, but I don’t think I’m an alarmist,” he said. “We have a society in which most people have become unable to understand or appreciate science, and partly that’s a communication problem, which we need to try to alleviate.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Exclusive: Climate Hustle’s Marc Morano Turns Down $20k Global Warming Bets From Bill Nye The Science Guy

April 12, 2016

Exclusive: Climate Hustle’s Marc Morano Turns Down $20k Global Warming Bets From Bill Nye The Science Guy

Offering the two bets to Marc Morano, of the conservative think tank the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), is popular television science presenter Bill Nye, “the science guy”.

Nye said he was willing to bet Morano that 2016 would be one of the ten hottest years on record. He also offered a bet the current decade would be the hottest on record.

Morano turned down both bets, telling DeSmog it was “silly” to take a bet when it was “obvious” the official records would show more global warming.

According to NASA measurements, 14 of the 16 hottest years on record have all happened since the year 2000. Last year, 2015, was also the hottest on record.

Nye offered the bets during a yet-to-be-screened interview requested by Morano, who is busy promoting his new Climate Hustle film. Here is an excerpt of their exchange, including the bets offered by Nye to Morano:

As DeSmog has reported, Climate Hustle features a roll call of climate science deniers and is set to rehash old myths.

Showbusiness “bible” Variety magazine reported as an “exclusive” today that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was endorsing the movie – an “exclusive” based on a press release from 31 March.

Variety failed to note how many of the views expressed in Climate Hustle run counter to the conclusions of major science academies around the world and 97 per cent of climate scientists.

Morano is a regular guest on conservative-leaning media outlets, including Fox News, where he constantly challenges the overwhelming science linking fossil fuel burning to dangerous climate change.

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

Trench warfare in the climate wars: no victory in sight

March 24, 2016

Trench warfare in the climate wars: no victory in sight

Image from “ThinkProgress”

The latest data from Gallup about how much Americans worry about global warming are nothing less than amazing. Today, we are exactly where we were more than one-quarter of a century ago. And yet, climate science has progressed, temperatures have been rising, the ice has been melting, the sea level has been rising, and plenty more evidence of dangerous global warming has accumulated. But the curves go up and down while the average remains constant; no long-term trend is apparent. It looks like trench warfare during the first world war. Mighty battles, lots of casualties, but neither side is winning.

In a sense, it is not surprising. I have been following the climate debate for several years and I can say that it is not a debate – it is a war. And in a war, you don’t debate using rational arguments, you take sides. It has to do with the extreme polarization that is taking hold in most Western societies (and it is increasing!). When it comes to discussing major issues, such as global warming, people are not debating; they are only making statements of identity. And it is normal that we are not going anywhere: neither scientific data nor anti-science spin campaigns (*) can move people who have chosen the side they belong to.

However, it is also true that trench warfare in the first world war didn’t last forever. At some point, one of the two sides couldn’t take it anymore and had to concede. Could something like that occur for the climate war? Possibly, yes. Indeed, many of us have been hoping for an event so major and so evident that the danger of global warming could not be denied anymore; the equivalent of a “decisive battle” in war. But even facing extreme events, reality can always be denied when ideological polarization takes hold. For the time being, we remain locked in trench warfare.

In-depth: the scientific challenge of extreme weather attribution

March 16, 2016

In-depth: the scientific challenge of extreme weather attribution

Lightning strikes across the deserts skies near Stateline NV

Working out whether human activity is supercharging extreme events, such as floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves, is one of the youngest branches of climate science. But it’s moving at breakneck pace.

So much so, that the US National Academy of Sciences has fast-tracked a report, published today, taking stock of the science and where it’s heading.

Event attribution is the field of science that asks if extreme weather around the world would look any different if we could replay the last 200 years or so, without human-caused greenhouse gases.

Today’s report is an overview, rather than a showcase for new results. And at about 150 pages long, it’s not a light read. But its weightiness is apt for a topic that has come to underpin climate conversations everywhere from flooding in the UK to climate change adaptation.

Carbon Brief has been speaking to key scientists in the world of attribution about how far the science has come, experimenting with communicating the nuances, and the thorny issue of making results public at lightning speed, often before peer review.

One thing is for sure, Dr Heidi Cullen, chief scientist at Climate Central and a contributor to today’s report, tells Carbon Brief:

“The days of saying no single weather event can be linked to climate change are over. For many extreme weather events, the link is now strong.”

‘A universal talking point’

Storms, droughts, heavy rain, heatwaves and other extreme weather events are of huge interest to society because of their often disastrous consequences for people and property.

As Prof Ted Shepherd, professor of climate science at the University of Reading in the UK, explains in a recent commentary in the journal Current Climate Change Reports:

“Just as weather is a topic of daily conversation, extreme weather events…provide a universal talking point.”

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

Does Methane Threaten Life?

March 15, 2016

Does Methane Threaten Life?

shutterstock_247058206

The question of whether methane (CH4) in the atmosphere is a threat to life is extraordinarily complex and generally not well understood. But, yes it is a serious threat, very serious and horribly real.

Okay, but don’t scientists understand this, and why aren’t they speaking out?

They are speaking out but only a very few.

Here’s the “speaking out” problem: Leading climate scientists are not willing to honestly expose their greatest fears, as discovered by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! whilst at COP21 in Paris this past December, interviewing one of the world’s leading climate scientists, Kevin Anderson (University of Manchester) of Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research who said: “So far we simply have not been prepared to accept the revolutionary implications of our own findings, and even when we do we are reluctant to voice such thoughts openly… many are ultimately choosing to censor their own research.”

Straightaway, we know from one of the world’s leading authorities on climate change that climate scientists are censoring their own research. But why?

“What we are afraid of doing is putting forward analysis that questions the paradigm, the economic way that we run society today… We fine-tune our analysis so that it fits into the economic reality of our society, the current economic framing. Actually our science now asks fundamental questions about this idea of economic growth in the short term, but we’re very reluctant to say that. In fact, the funding bodies are reluctant to fund research that raises those questions,” Democracy Now! Top Climate Expert: Crisis is Worse Than We Think & Scientists Are Self-Censoring to Downplay Risk, Dec. 8, 2015.

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

Study Finds The ‘Era of Climate Science Denial Is Not Over’

January 8, 2016

Study Finds The ‘Era of Climate Science Denial Is Not Over’

These think tanks produce reports, hold conferences, write books, go on television, produce columns and blogs and generally and liberally splatter the public discourse with talking points.

You’ll have heard their manufactured doubt everywhere. “CO2 is great for the planet… fossil fuels are good… climate scientists are wrong… the world has been hotter in the past… cutting emissions will kill the economy.” That sort of thing.

But there has been speculation that as the world continues to break heat records, and as oceans rise and the science sends ever more clear and urgent signals, that the focus of these think tanks will shift away from attacking the science to discussing policy.

Now a new study published in the journal Global Environmental Change has declared unambiguously “the era of climate science denial is not over”.

Dr Travis Coan, of the University of Exeter, and Dr Constantine Boussalis, of Trinity College Dublin, analysed 16,000 articles, reports, transcripts, letters, reviews and press releases from the websites of 19 conservative think tanks, mainly based in the U.S, who work on climate change.

In the study, Boussalis and Coan discuss how commentators had been speculating about an end of climate science denial for more than a decade.

Analysing documents from 1998 until mid-2013, Boussalis and Coan found that think tanks had in recent years been focusing less on policy and more on attacking the science.

In a blog post for The Guardian, Coan told me:

In our view, meeting the challenges posed by organized climate skepticism requires accurate and systematic information on what these organizations are saying.

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

What Worries the World’s Most Famous Climate Scientist?

December 2, 2015

What Worries the World’s Most Famous Climate Scientist?

James Hansen is fretting about the Paris talks, and for good reason.

James Hansen detailed his fears in a recent communiqué posted on his website. Photo by chesapeakeclimate. Creative Commons licensed.

James Hansen is fretting about the Paris climate talks, and for good reason.

You might recall that Hansen was the NASA scientist that boldly warned the United States Congress about the perils of rising global temperatures as early as 1988.

And you might remember that officials with the U.S. administration of George W. Bush instructed the world’s most famous climate change scientist not to talk about how fossil fuel burning could have a dangerous effect on climate in 2004.

But Hansen kept on talking about melting ice, rising seas, flooded coastal cities and super storms. And now he’s worried that Paris will be another bureaucratic gabfest that avoids the true remedy: rapid fossil fuel emissions reductions driven by a carbon levy.

By rapid, Hansen doesn’t think the world’s industrial economies have time to be self-satisfied about stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions around 450 parts per million or even the alarming present amount of 400 ppm. No, to restore the Earth’s energy balance, now unsettled by centuries of greenhouse gas emissions, the world needs to aim for 350 ppm and possibly lower.

Everyone agrees that business as usual will take the world to 600 ppm by 2050, along with a rise of temperature by four degrees.

That grim future will give the world drowned coastal cities, parched crops, millions of refugees and failing ecosystems. Nobody really knows what would remain of civilization, as we know it.

Hansen worries politicians still don’t get the urgency. He also worries that U.S. President Barack Obama and others will sell our children and theirs “down the river” in Paris with more promises and no action.

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

Coal CEO Thanks Lamar Smith, Asks Him to Expand Probe of Climate Scientists

November 28, 2015

Coal CEO Thanks Lamar Smith, Asks Him to Expand Probe of Climate Scientists

In recent remarks Robert E. Murray, the chief executive officer of Murray Energy, the largest privately-held coal mining company in America, enthusiastically praised Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Tex., the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, for leading an investigation into prominent climate scientists and environmental officials.

Murray, speaking at a gathering in Austin last week for global warming deniers organized by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said he wanted to “congratulate” Smith on his subpoena of Kathryn Sullivan, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Murray then declared that the American Meteorology Association and Union of Concerned Scientists, two private nonprofits that serve the scientific community, also “need to be investigated.”

“They’re crony capitalists, they’re making a fortune off of you the taxpayer,” said Murray, who stood up to praise the Texas congressman again on the next day of the conference. After receiving the second round of compliments, Smith thanked the coal executive and took a seat next to him.

Watch Murray’s remarks below:

Smith, who gained notoriety for serving as the chief House sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill widely decried for promoting Internet censorship, is now leading the charge in Congress against the scientific community.

Since assuming the chairmanship of the House Science Committee, Smith has led a series of attacks on the scientific consensus around global warming, including hearings at which Smith and other GOP lawmakers berated officials involved in creating climate policy. Smith has also proposed legislation to create political criteria for studies funded by the National Science Foundation and to cut the budgets of scientists involved in climate research.

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

Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media

November 24, 2015

Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate.

The abstract and full text of the study can be found here: Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.

The analysis of 20 years’ worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.

“The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” Dr. Farrell told the Washington Post which was first to cover the news of the study’s release. “This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own,” Dr. Farrell said.

From PNAS’s press briefing note about the article by Dr. Farrell:

Corporate funding likely influences the nature and content of polarizing texts pertaining to climate change, according to a study. Political polarization has become a hallmark of climate change policy discussion, with multiple groups in various sectors contributing to public discourse regarding climate and energy. To quantify the influence of corporate funding in climate change discourse, Justin Farrell analyzed more than 39 million words of text produced by 164 organizations active in the climate change counter-movement between 1993 and 2013. The author examined the ideological content of the produced texts, as well as the funding behind the organizations that produced the texts.

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

Duality in climate science

October 16, 2015

Duality in climate science

A commentary published in Nature Geoscience (online Oct. 2015)

Brief Abstract:
The commentary demonstrates the endemic bias prevalent amongst many of those developing emission scenarios to severely underplay the scale of the 2°C mitigation challenge. In several important respects the modelling community is self-censoring its research to conform to the dominant political and economic paradigm. Moreover, there is a widespread reluctance of many within the climate change community to speak out against unsupported assertions that an evolution of ‘business as usual’ is compatible with the IPCC’s 2°C carbon budgets. With specific reference to energy, this analysis concludes that even a slim chance of “keeping below” a 2°C rise, now demands a revolution in how we both consume and produce energy. Such a rapid and deep transition will have profound implications for the framing of contemporary society and is far removed from the rhetoric of green growth that increasingly dominates the climate change agenda.

DOI:10.1038/ngeo2559 http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2559.html

The commentary should also be available to all, including non-subscribers, via http://rdcu.be/eoQY (this may not download onto phones, iPads, etc.)

An open access and pre-edit pdf is available at: On the duality of climate scientists – pre-edit version of a submission to Nature – 2015 This pre-edit version is also copied below.

*****

On the duality of climate scientists:
… how integrated assessment models are hard-wired to deliver politically palatable outcomes

The value of science is undermined when we adopt questionable assumptions and fine-tune our analysis to conform to dominant political and economic sensibilities. The pervasive inclusion of speculative negative emission technologies to deliver politically palatable 2°C mitigation is but one such example. Society needs scientists to make transparent and reasoned assumptions, however uncomfortable the subsequent conclusions may be for the politics of the day.

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

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