Political Climate Articles
Glenn Beck proves he's a brainless frog, warning (?)
"Barack Obama has galvanized the country.... He's forced us to think!"
To prove a point known only to him, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck throws a frog in boiling water (maybe). It's not entirely clear from the video that Beck actually did what he said he did:
"You know the old saying, if you put a frog into boiling water, he's going to jump right out, because he's scalding hot, but if you place the frog in lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature, it won't realize what's happening and die?"
Once and for all people, this assertion is a myth. As Wikipedia puts it, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz "demonstrated that frogs will indeed remain in slowly heated water, but only if their brain is removed" - see "Turns out humans are not like slowly boiling frogs ... we are like slowly boiling brainless frogs."
Now if anyone on the planet is proof that our species is like slowly boiling brainless frogs - that we should drop one of the sapiens, and, provisionally put the other one in quotes, so we are Homo "sapiens" sapiens - that would be Glenn "Almost everyone who does believe in global warming is a socialist" Beck.
Read More...
The spreading of Ignorance
The anti-scientific website WattsUpWithThat happily assures us that we should simply ignore all of the well-known climate science predictions that this part of Australia would become hotter and drier - even though Australia's 1000-year drought is strong evidence the predictions were right. Watts finds a 'reader' who claims the epic Dust Storm has "nothing to do with the dreaded Climate Change." Seriously!
Watts also points out a bright side:
"dust headed to sea has an unappreciated benefit – it will fertilize the ocean with its mineral rich dust." Yes, the record drought wipes out land-based crops, and we're in the process of poisoning the oceans for millennia, but hey, a massive Dust Bowl may create "some interesting blooms of sea life in the weeks to come."
Read More...
Behind the Furor Over a Climate Change Skeptic
WASHINGTON - Alan Carlin, a 72-year-old analyst and economist, had labored in obscurity in a little-known office at the Environmental Protection Agency since the Nixon administration.
In June, however, he became a sudden celebrity with the surfacing of a few e-mail messages that seemed to show that his contrarian views on global warming had been suppressed by his superiors because they were inconvenient to the Obama administration's climate change policy. Conservative commentators and Congressional Republicans said he had been muzzled because he did not toe the liberal line.
But a closer look at his case and a broader set of internal E.P.A. documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act paint a more complicated picture.
Read More...
Inhofe on why global warming isn't real: "God's still up there."
CALLER: Yes, I agree with the Senator on what he says about the climate change. I believe that the world is just changing like it usually does....
INHOFE: I think he's right. I think what he's saying is God's still up there. We're going through these cycles. ... I really believe that a lot of people are in denial who want to hang their hat on the fact, that they believe is a fact, that man-made gases, anthropogenic gases, are causing global warming. The science really isn't there.
Thank God the Senator from Oklahoma is here to promise us that that the Almighty will override at a planetary level the laws of physics He created and simply stop human-emissions of heat-trapping gases from ravaging his Creation. Now if we can only get Inhofe to tell God to stop all cancers and traffic accidents, too.
Read More...
Dust Bowl-ification hits Eastern Australia - next stop the U.S. Southwest.
We have seen the future, and it is Australia - and it isn't pretty (see "Absolute must read: Australia today offers horrific glimpse of U.S. Southwest, much of planet, post-2040, if we don't slash emissions soon"). NASA's Earth Observatory reported yesterday:
A wall of dust stretched from northern Queensland to the southern tip of eastern Australia on the morning of September 23, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite captured this image [see amazing photo below]. The dust is thick enough that the land beneath it is not visible. The storm, the worst in 70 years, led to canceled or delayed flights, traffic problems, and health issues, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News. The concentration of particles in the air reached 15,000 micrograms per cubic meter in New South Wales during the storm, said ABC News. A normal day sees a particle concentration 10-20 micrograms per cubic meter.
Read More...
Dust storms spread deadly diseases worldwide
Dust storms like the one that plagued Sydney are blowing bacteria to all corners of the globe, with viruses that will attack the human body. Yet these scourges can also help mitigate climate change
Huge dust storms, like the ones that blanketed Sydney twice last week, hit Queensland yesterday and turned the air red across much of eastern Australia, are spreading lethal epidemics around the world. However, they can also absorb climate change emissions, say researchers studying the little understood but growing phenomenon.
The Sydney storm, which left millions of people choking on some of the worst air pollution in 70 years, was a consequence of the 10-year drought that has turned parts of Australia's interior into a giant dust bowl, providing perfect conditions for high winds to whip loose soil into the air and carry it thousands of miles across the continent.
It followed major dust storms this year in northern China, Iraq and Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, east Africa, Arizona and other arid areas. Most of the storms are also linked to droughts, but are believed to have been exacerbated by deforestation, overgrazing of pastures and climate change.
Read More...
DUST OVER EASTERN AUSTRALIA
A powerful dust storm swept over eastern Australia on September 23, 2009, extending from Northern Queensland to Victoria across the eastern coast of Australia.
*
View Photos...
*** MODIS(Aqua) image from Sep 24, 2009 (Posted on Sep 24, 2009 12:50 PM)
*
View Photos...
*** MODIS(Terra) image from Sep 24, 2009 (Posted on Sep 24, 2009 11:30 AM)
*
View Photos...
*** MODIS(Terra) image from Sep 23, 2009 (Posted on Sep 23, 2009 10:25 AM)
Saharan Dust over the Atlantic
A tan cloud of Saharan dust hangs over the North Atlantic Ocean in this photo-like satellite image from September 21, 2009. The image shows signs that the dust extends both west and north away from the coast and up into the atmosphere. The dust takes the shape of the wind, forming waves near the surface immediately offshore. This surface-level dust is veiled in a thin cloud of brown where dust has infiltrated higher into the atmosphere. This vertical distribution of dust creates the "X" in the plume near the center of the image: the top layer of dust is moving a different direction than the lower layer of dust.
Read More...
Schwarzenegger: ready to work for Obama, go green California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is ready to put his star power to work for President Barack Obama on the environment when his own term ends next year, the former movie actor said on Thursday.
Republican Schwarzenegger is arguably the biggest environmentalist in his party and razzed Washington, which is struggling to pass climate change legislation and prepare for international talks, for wrangling with other countries over global warming goals rather than setting an example.
"Did we say China, you go first with human rights, and we will follow you? No. We led," he said in an address at the Commonwealth Club lauding his state's climate change plan, which is the most aggressive in the nation.
Read More...
So Shall You Reap
Many farming communities think global warming won't hurt them. They're wrong.
You might think a little global warming is good for farming. Longer, warmer growing seasons and more carbon dioxide (CO2)-what plant wouldn't love that? The agricultural industry basically takes that stance. But global warming's effects on agriculture would actually be quite complicated-and mostly not for the better.
Based on rationales from "climate change isn't real" to "it will increase crop yields so it's a good thing" to "it will cost us money" most of the country's farming sectors along with their elected officials have staunchly opposed taking action to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Even after securing several significant concessions-including an exemption from emission caps-congressional members from agricultural states mostly voted against the Waxman-Markey bill (a.k.a. the American Clean Energy and Security Act). But if people who work in agriculture are not worried about the effects of climate change on their livelihood, they should be. "The agricultural industry is really reading the science wrong here," says Nathanael Greene, director of renewable-energy policy at the Natural Resource Defense Council.
Read More...
What can be done with wastewater?
Rapid expansion of gas drilling has led to problems with disposal, contamination
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel in Clairton and Allegheny Energy in Greene County used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery.
Nearby residents saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were coming out with spots that couldn't be rinsed off easily.
Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the likely cause and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela River, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, apparently had been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state's growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
Read More...