"We owe it to our children & grandchildren."

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How the news media is damning us all to climate purgatory.

As a reasonably well-educated and literate lay person (corporate lawyer specializing in large real estate projects) I feel compelled to observe that I, on a regular basis, depend on the news media for information as to what matters I should be concerned with (economic trends, new technologies, health risks such as seasonal flu outbreaks, new medical treatments, new scientific developments, etc.).

This information heavily influences my opinions, decision-making and voting preferences. In all of these areas, I depend very heavily on reporters to evaluate, summarize and communicate accurate information — and not to simply serve as stenographers for nitwits. Thus, while I can’t look to financial reporters to provide investment advice, I do expect them to be familiar enough with their area of supposed expertise to call out or cull out information (propaganda?) that is obviously false, misleading or incomplete in light of objective evidence.

I am dumbfounded that climate science is somehow seen as some special sort of bizzaro world where what I see as the normal expectation of news consumers (factual vetting, providing context and assessing implications based on discussions with real authorities) is thrown out the window in favor of he-said/she-said. In what universe do we expect particle physicists to be personally responsible for communicating the scientific implications of their research directly to the public, and then blame the physicists if the public doesn’t “get it”? Ditto for genetic researchers, astronomers, biologists, etc.

I came late to the party regarding AGW – until 2008, the issue was on my radar as a “century away” theoretical problem — it seemed like for every “this will be a big problem” article there was a “no problemo” article. I was accordingly floored in 2008 when I had to do due diligence research for a proposed investment in renewable energy to start reading primary materials and discovering that my media derived “understanding” was grossly in error. (And yes, in an effort to evaluate “the other side of the argument”, I did wind up visiting most of the prominent internet skeptic sites and looked at materials from Singer, Lindzen, Spencer, etc. – I concluded they were virtually useless in providing accurate information.)

I conclude that the views expressed by the moderators, Dr. Curry and others as to the lack of responsibility of journalists in this arena is directly contrary to the (apparently misplaced) assumptions and expectations that lay folk such as I bring to the table – that journalists will provide factual vetting, context and implications based on information in their respective field viewed as most authoritative. If this is the case, and if the former view is correct, media are just “filling space” with random noise and are effectively useless (or worse) in helping ordinary people assess risks, make decisions and make sense of the world.

The Press and Climate: An Anti-Testimonial
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In just 3 human lifetimes.

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Global Warming is becoming more & more extreme.

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The Runaway Greenhouse Effect

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How hot is it?

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Let's try & keep this simple.

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"We're insulting our global environment..."

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Extreme ice loss, no sh*t!

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EXXOM SCANDAL EXXPOSED! So where's the news media?

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The exposure of the EXXOM-backed, tobacco-like, anti-science disinformation & denial conspiracy is finally getting some overdue coverage on the blogosphere.

Ask yourself why SciGuy or the Houston Chron is not reporting this potentially globally hot scandal that directly involves EXXOM, the, if not a, biggest employer & contributor & sponsor in So. Texas?

Could it be allegiance to, if not fear of, one of the biggest authoritarian carbon polluters this side of the Ganges, if not Yellow, River?

Or simply an uber-conservative sense, if not a history textbook full, of revisionist history & creationist ideology?

Or just news media business-as-usual that caters to fundamentally anti-science, anti-democratic sentiments in the libertarian bible belt?

Smacks of a major scandal, if not complicit coverup, to the rest of Colbert Nation.

Climate Science Watch: Dealing in Doubt: New Greenpeace report reviews 20 years of the climate change denial machine

The Cost of Energy: Greenpeace exposes those “dealing in doubt”

Hot Topics New Zealand: Dealing in doubt: 20 years of attacks on climate science

Post Carbon Institute: A Confederacy of (Climate) Dunces

The new report succinctly explains how fossil fuel interests used the tobacco industry’s playbook and an extensive arsenal of lobbyists and “experts” for hire in order to manufacture disinformation designed to confuse the public and stifle action to address climate change.

ExxonMobil deservedly gets special attention for its role as the ringleader of the “campaign of denial.” As Greenpeace has documented meticulously over the years with its ExxonSecrets website, ExxonMobil is known to have invested over $23 million since 1998 to bankroll an entire movement of climate confusionists, including over 35 anti-science and right wing nonprofits, to divert attention away from the critical threat of climate disruption caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels.

The report ... calls out by name a number of key climate skeptics and deniers who have worked with industry front groups to confuse the public, including S. Fred Singer, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, David Legates, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon, Tim Ball, Pat Michaels and many other figures familiar to DeSmog Blog readers.

A number of the key “think tanks” at the forefront of the attacks on climate science — including the Heartland Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute — are also examined for their climate denial work on behalf of oil and coal interests.

Greenpeace explains how the network of denial was created in the early 1990s to dissuade politicians from taking action to prevent climate change. Chief among these early groups were the Global Climate Coalition, the Climate Council and the Information Council on the Environment (ICE).

The report also provides a brief history of the attacks launched against each of the IPCC’s scientific assessment reports dating back to 1990, noting the key players involved in each successive attack leading up to the present day attempts to tarnish the IPCC’s reputation and to falsely suggest that a debate still exists among climate scientists.

Personal attacks endured by climate scientists, especially key contributors to the IPCC reports, are also discussed in some detail, including the virulent attacks by the climate denial industry against reputed scientists like Michael Mann, Ben Santer, and Kevin Trenberth.

Greenpeace also calls out Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) and other members of Congress who are beholden to polluting industries through campaign contributions, and who regularly aid and abet the climate denial industry by promoting the false and misleading claims of deniers and skeptics on Capitol Hill.

Finally, “Dealing in Doubt” notes the escalation of the denial campaign during the administration of George W. Bush, when key White House and regulatory agency positions were filled with polluter lobbyists.

The placement of Philip Cooney, a lawyer and lobbyist who spent 15 years at the American Petroleum Institute before he was picked as chief of staff in the Bush White House Council on Environmental Quality, serves as a key example. Days after the New York Times broke the story that Cooney had made extensive edits on government scientific reports on global warming, Cooney resigned to go work for ExxonMobil.

“Dealing in Doubt” is recommended reading for anyone looking for a brief primer on the history of the denial industry’s relentless campaign against science and reason.

DeSmogBlog: Greenpeace Releases 20-Year History of Climate Denial Industry
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Hatred of knowledge, ignorance, & fear

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Instead of hatred of knowledge, ignorance & fear, honest concerned citizens should try science, reason, & civility.

And educate themselves about the science & dangers of carbon emissions from coal & oil.

How much carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced when different fuels are burned?

Pounds of CO2 emitted per million Btu of energy:

• Coal (anthracite) - 227
• Coal (bituminous) - 205
• Coal (lignite) - 215
• Coal (sub-bituminous) - 213
• Diesel fuel & heating oil - 161
• Gasoline - 156
• Propane - 139
• Natural gas - 117

What are the largest sources of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions by fuel?

United States (Million Metric Tons):

• Total From Fossil Fuels - 5,833
• Coal - 2,125 - 36%
• Natural Gas - 1,272 - 22%
• Petroleum - 2,436 - 42%

How much CO2 does the United States emit?

Metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted per capita in 2008:

• United States — 19.2
• China — 4.9
• Europe — 7.8
• World Average — 4.5

What are greenhouse gases and how do they affect the climate?

• Carbon dioxide (82.8%)
• Methane (10.5%)
• Nitrous oxide (4.3%)
• Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (collectively 2.5%)

These gases are transparent to incoming solar (short-wave) radiation but block infrared (long-wave) radiation from leaving Earth's atmosphere. Therefore, they trap radiation from the Sun and warm the planet's surface. As concentrations of these gases increase, more warming occurs than would happen naturally.
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MOST WANTED DENIERS

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Virtually everyone with cable TV knows who & what Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, & Sean Hannity are & look like, but isn't it about time we had an updated most wanted deck of cards, akin to Monbiot's royal flush, to help the public actually see who the worst offenders are, their denial offenses, & the status of their prosecution, incarceration, or conversion?

Might we suggest the following list of anti-science offenders to get the deck a-shuffling?

James Inhofe - Ace of Spades
Rex Tillerson - King of Diamonds
Steve McIntyre - Queen of Hearts
Anthony Watts - Jack of Clubs
Roger Pielke Jr. -
Jonathan Leake - Joker
Timothy Ball
Richard Lindzen
Bjorn Lomborg
Ross McKitrick
Patrick Michaels
Steve Milloy
Christopher Monckton
Marc Morano
Ian Plimer
Frederick Seitz
S. Fred Singer
Roy Spencer

DeSmogBlog's Disinformation Database
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Open Letter from Scientists on IPCC

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Deniers are gonna need a helluva lot more denial, if not EXXOM taxpayer subsidies, if they want to even remotely undermine the science these days.

An Open Letter from Scientists in the United States on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Many in the popular press and other media, as well as some in the halls of Congress, are seizing on a few errors that have been found in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in an attempt to discredit the entire report. None of the handful of mis-statements (out of hundreds and hundreds of unchallenged statements) remotely undermines the conclusion that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

The significance of IPCC errors has been greatly exaggerated by many sensationalist accounts, but that is no reason to avoid implementing procedures to make the assessment process even better. The public has a right to know the risks of climate change as scientists currently understand them. We are dedicated to working with our colleagues and government in furthering that task.

Signed by:
- Gary W. Yohe, Wesleyan University and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
- Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford University
- Cynthia Rosenzweig, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University
- William E. Easterling, Pennsylvania State University

And Allah only knows how many more.
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Dr. Steven Chu: Climate Denial bigger than Tobacco Denial

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Honest American citizens would be much better informed, if not well-versed in denial, to listen to dedicated, honest scientists who know what the hell they're talking about:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu discussed the stiff competition the United States faces from China, which is moving quickly to close down inefficient coal plants as well as nurturing its fast-growing wind and solar industries. He is charged with helping implement President Obama's ambitious agenda to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

"One can honestly say that if we don't do this, we will not be economically competitive. The debate for whether smoking causes lung cancer and emphysema was actually in the first decade among scientists, but they muddied the waters for 2½ more decades. Climate change, on a global scale, is a much bigger deal, and people are trying to muddy the waters, particularly people who think they might lose.

"A lot of businesses in Silicon Valley see the opportunity. The push back comes from more traditional businesses, like oil and gas, and energy-intensive businesses. Take agriculture: Rural America can benefit greatly from clean technology. They have land, so they can have wind turbines. They can have carbon offsets from planting trees. They can have biofuel from biowaste. Now you have three different income generators in rural America that could dwarf or at least be comparable to the cash you'd get from growing food crops.

And not from dismantled & unethical, if not fraudulently unmanly, hard-core scoundrels like Tony Watts:

"Anthony: Your use of false claims to accuse NOAA scientists of deliberate deception was not just mistaken, it was unethical. If you have any honor at all, you’ll set the record straight. You owe it to everyone, and especially to NOAA, to admit that you were wrong. And you certainly owe it to NOAA to apologize. You need to make a highly visible, highly public admission of error, and apology, for using falsehoods to accuse others of fraud. Are you man enough?" Tamino's Message to Anthony Watts

Same old song; same old denial talking points!

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We've heard them all before, over & over & over again.

Simply ignore what dedicated climate scientists and world-renown scientific organizations have researched & reported:

• The global climate is changing
• Human activities produce heat-trapping gases.
• Heat-trapping gases are very likely responsible for most of the warming observed over the past half century.
• The higher the levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the higher the risk of potentially dangerous consequences for humans and our environment.

And what more recent scientific studies reveal about the dangerous impacts of anthropogenic global warming right here at home:

• 10°F temperature rise across the states
• Dust bowls over much of the U.S.
• 50% loss of land & sea life
• 5 ft plus sea level rise
• More destructive killer hurricanes along the Gulf
• Much bigger storm surges along the Gulf
• More rain & flooding & snow & other extreme weather events

Then parrot the debunked anti-science of EXXOM-funded denial front groups & hired guns to hide the truth about EXXOM foreign oil mega-profits and taxpayer mega-subsidies at the criminal cost of even more deadly carbon emissions & human suffering & death.

Yes, we've all seen the stages of denial before, over & over & over again.

Deniers don't like the idea of climate change, they don't believe it is possible for humans to change the climate, they don't like the implications of climate change, they don't like the things we might have to do to address it, or they just don't like government or science. The best argument against global warming

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming. Oil Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

Evidence Provided In UK Parliamentary Inquiry Into Climate Scientists Was Prepared By Oil and Gas Industry Consultant

Intelligent Designers Enlist Climate Skeptics in the War on Reality
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Merchants of Doubt

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Dr. Naomi Oreskes has an answer for Climate Change Skeptics.

Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedly—some of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is “not settled” denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one tobacco executive. These “experts” supplied it. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.

Texas climate scientists stick it to EXXOM-funded deniers.

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Bravo Zulu! Texas climate scientists stick it to EXXOM-backed deniers.

Texas' challenge to the EPA's endangerment finding on carbon dioxide contains very little science. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott admitted that the state did not consult any climate scientists, including the many here in the state, before putting together the challenge to the EPA. Instead, the footnotes in the document reveal that the state relied mainly on British newspaper articles to make its case.

Contrary to what one might read in newspapers, the science of climate change is strong.

• The global climate is changing
• Human activities produce heat-trapping gases.
• Heat-trapping gases are very likely responsible for most of the warming observed over the past half century.
• The higher the levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the higher the risk of potentially dangerous consequences for humans and our environment.

The national academies of science of 32 nations, and every major scientific organization in the United States whose members include climate experts, have issued statements endorsing these points.... In fact, to the best of our knowledge, there are no climate scientists in Texas who disagree with the mainstream view of climate science.

We are all aware of the news reports describing the stolen e-mails from climate scientists and the errors in the IPCC reports. While aspects of climate change impacts have been overstated, none of the errors or allegations of misbehavior undermine the science behind any of the statements made above. In particular, they do not alter the conclusions that humans have taken over from nature as the dominant influence on our climate.

On global warming, the science is solid
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If only we could see the gases.

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Partisan, anti-science tirades against respected scientists have no place in respectable mainstream news outlets including their editorials & science blogs. They only accentuate the lack of understanding & appreciation for what climate science tells us about our future on this planet.

Time to get back to the basics of empirical evidence.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing. This is measured by hundreds of monitoring stations across the globe, all finding the same increasing trend (NOAA). The rising trend is confirmed by satellite measurements conducted independently by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. Combined with ice core measurements from Greenland and Antarctica, this tells us that atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest in over 15 million years (Tripati 2009).

Humans are emitting nearly twice as much CO2 as ends up remaining in the atmosphere. Measurements of carbon isotopes confirm that the rising CO2 originates from the burning of fossil fuel (Ghosh 2003). Further independent confirmation comes from observed falling oxygen levels caused by the burning of fossil fuel (Manning 2006).

Satellite measurements of outgoing longwave radiation find an enhanced greenhouse effect (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).

This heat build-up is manifesting itself across the globe. Arctic sea-ice loss is accelerating beyond the worst case scenarios of model forecasts (Stroeve 2007).

Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing ice mass at an accelerating rate (Velicogna 2009).

This is speeding up sea level rise as observed by tidal gauges and satellite altimeters (Church 2006). Skeptical Science

If only we could see the gases.
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Not another goddamn Global Warming Denial thread!?!

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Recent visits to Eric Berger's SciGuy blog @ the Houston Chronicle confirm what the climate science-minded have always suspected -- it's yet another MSM outlet infiltrated, if not yet overrun, by marauding denialosaurs that feed at EXXOM-funded anti-science websites like Steve McIntyre's Climate Fraudit & Tony Watts' UpHisB*tt.

In low-lying, hurricane-prone, parochial Houston, Anti-Science Deniers do what they do best -- desecrate the science when not busy manufacturing scientific scandals:

This is the real story exposed of "Climategate". It has been the most egregious and unfounded attack on the integrity of a profession we have ever seen.

It turns out that almost all of the mistakes are fabrications. ... The stories were all written by Jonathan Leake, science and environment editor of The Sunday Times. Leake has close links with deniers and in fact based these stories directly on wild and unsubstantiated claims by sceptic bloggers, as uncovered by Tim Holmes.

Leake’s stories have been reproduced in the other Murdoch broadsheets, The Australian and the Wall Street Journal and of course have been amplified on Fox News, and are themselves now being referred to as Leakegate.

Yet these alleged mistakes – non-existent or trivial – with no implications whatever for the robustness of climate science have been deployed in a sophisticated campaign to blacken the reputations of the scientists responsible for alerting us to the perils of global warming.

Just when we should be urging immediate and deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, the public is being lulled into disbelief, scepticism and apathy by a sustained and politically driven assault on the credibility of climate science. For this we will all pay dearly.

Clive Hamilton, The Drum Unleashed
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Clear & Present Danger to Public Welfare

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If you haven't yet heard, the Texas State Climatologist, Dr. John Nielson-Gammon, is making his case over at The Wonk Room:

Texas State Climatologist Disputes State’s Denier Petition: Greenhouse Gases ‘Clearly Present A Danger To The Public Welfare’.

and at Joe Romm's Climate Progress:

Texas state climatologist disputes state’s anti-science petition: Greenhouse gases “clearly present a danger to the public welfare.”

Now those are some headlines we can all live by.

NIELSEN-GAMMON: Do I think that the EPA based its assessment on sound science? I think, by basing its assessments on the IPCC, USGCRP, and NAS reports, it was basing its assessments on the best available science. I have the expertise to independently evaluate the quality of these reports, and on the whole they constitute in my opinion the most comprehensive, balanced assessments of climate change science presently available.

WONK ROOM: Do you know of any particular reason to doubt that the planet is warming, that greenhouse gases are involved, and that sea levels are rising?

NIELSEN-GAMMON: No.

WONK ROOM: I’m also interested if there are any specific risks relevant to Texas.

NIELSEN-GAMMON: Potential Texas vulnerabilities include sea level rises, droughts, floods, estuarine ecosystems, and agricultural productivity. The possible adverse economic impact of future greenhouse gas emission control strategies on Texas industries also represents a risk associated with global warming.

Full text of email interview with Dr. Nielsen-Gammon

And please take note that the Texas State Climatologist is not the only South Texan to support the conclusions of the IPCC & the findings of the EPA.

Dr. Andrew Dessler, a climatologist at Texas A&M University and author of The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change, tells the Wonk Room in an email interview that the entire Department of Atmospheric Sciences agrees with the IPCC:

"I, along with all of the other faculty in the department, agree with the main conclusions of the IPCC."

Dr. Kenneth P. Bowman, the head of the Texas A&M University Department of Atmospheric Sciences, writes:

"I believe that EPA finding is based on good science, as do all of my colleagues in the Atmospheric Science Department here at Texas A&M."

UPDATES: Texas State Climatologist Disputes State’s Denier Petition: Greenhouse Gases ‘Clearly Present A Danger To The Public Welfare’

Dr. Nielson-Gammon also plays over at his Atmo.Sphere blog & sometimes, when a pleasant mood overwhelms him, the Houston Chron's SciGuy.

All you science savvy, biodiversity loving, intelligent citizens of planet Earth, bring friends, lots of 'em.
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