"Climate Change Has Run Its Course?" More Balderdash From An Academic Know Nothing

Devastation in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, which climate scientists agree was spawned by warmer ocean temperatures from global warming.

In a WSJ article Tuesday (p. A15) by Steven F. Hayward  ('Climate Change Has Run Its Course') it is claimed that climate change is now passé  and "climate change as an issue is essentially over". It is quite possible that Hayward, a "senior resident scholar" at the University of California -Berkeley,  really is a scholar of some repute at least in "government studies".   But the tripe he wrote for the WSJ a few days ago discloses him as merely another climate know nothing who probably has never even taken a college physics course.

Basically this dunderhead trots out all the usual canards which I do not intend to go through  in detail -  as I've addressed them dozens of times  with other uninformed dopes, pretenders and propagandists, e.g. Steve Koonin, David R. Henderson, Roger Pielke Jr. et al.  So I will just take up the new arguments that Hayward insists disqualifies the topic as anything of immediate import.

What is ironic here, is just as I was reading Hayward's codswallop, wifey and I were on the phone with an agent from the Hartford, to discuss yet another roof replacement.  This was to do with replacing all the tiles on our roof after another mega hailstorm barely three weeks ago - with many stones the size of golf balls or half dollars. This followed an initial hail storm featuring baseball size hail in 2016 which saw us replacing the roof for the first time.  This after residing 17 going on 18 years here in Colorado, but which featured two massive hailstorms in the past two years that required new roofing.  Of course, even the most menial moron ought to be able to grasp this is linked to climate change. Just as the drought we're in the middle of which has now eroded the snowpack to 50 % of what it was a few months ago.
 
This triggered water restrictions in Manitou Springs, nearby, but not yet here in Colorado Springs. (Though it should!)  Meanwhile, we're now in the midst of a string of 90 degree plus days or some 15 degrees hotter than normal.

And this is just the beginning of what we here in Colorado can expect. Merely two years ago the average temperature in Denver for June, July and August was 72.7 degrees — 1.5 degrees higher than the annual average of 71.2 dating to 1872, according to Kyle Fredin, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Boulder. If current trends in heat-trapping emissions continue, Denver residents by 2050 will face an average of 35 days a year where temperatures hit 95 degrees or hotter, the study found. 

Boulder by 2050 will have an average 38 days a year with temperatures exceeding 95 degrees and, by the end of the century, an average of 75 such days a year. The studies found Fort Collins by 2050 will have an average 24 days with temperatures exceeding 95 degrees and 58 days on average by the end of the century.

These numbers may not significantly impress many people, but they should given they mean vastly more demands on the power grid.  Moreover, our power grid demands will be multiplied across the nation and people will take notice as their electricity costs spike upward from 100-200%.   Also, as extended periods of each day find people - wherever they live- without power,  especially in 100 degree plus temperatures.

Factor in also the "one hundred year storms" with rain downpours the likes of which that can sweep whole towns away - such as for Ellicot City, MD recently.   See e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2017/11/rivers-from-skies-nature-of-mega.html

Then there is the ongoing risk of flooding in Miami  given sea level rise.  Even though it may only be measured in inches these rain events are able to flood the streets even on sunny days if there is also a king tide on those days..

Research published  in the journal Environmental Research Letters  and reported in the WSJ (April 21-22, p. A3) shows that "single family homes in Miami Dade County are rising in value more slowly near sea level than at higher elevations."  

 Reinforcing Keenan's work, the WSJ (ibid.) cites another new paper from researchers at the University of Colorado-Boulder and Pennsylvania State University. This paper "shows the trend in Miami is playing out across the country, with homes vulnerable to rising sea levels now selling at a 7 percent discount compared to similar but less expensive properties."

But all this is but a prelude to what can be expected by 2035, e.g. as seen in this U.S. Geological survey projected map:


I reference all the above, as well as the monster hurricanes last year, that wreaked havoc in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico given the following words from Hayward's piece:

"While opinion surveys find that roughly half of Americans regard climate change as a problem, the issue has never achieved the high salience among the public,  despite the drumbeat of alarm from the climate campaign. Americans consistently ranked climate the 19th or 20th of 20 leading issues."


Eliciting the question of why this is so when Europeans - who generally aren't threatened by monster hurricanes or tornado outbreaks - rank it consistently higher. Are the Germans, Dutch, British more intelligent than Americans? I wouldn't say so only that their media do not undermine the message by  canceling out the alarms by publishing the dreck from rightist and libertarian think tanks in the misplaced interest of "balance".   These op-ed pieces are written mainly by propagandists and climate deniers paid by the think tanks so the newspapers save money by filling space without using actual journalists.. Again, we call this agnotology.   As Exhibit One I present this garbage published in the WSJ in January, 2012:











In many ways it's cut from the same patch of recycled, already skewered balderdash as Hayward's recent piece. As I have pointed out repeatedly, agnotology, derived from the Greek 'agnosis' - the study of culturally constructed ignorance- is achieved primarily by sowing the teeniest nugget of doubt in whatever claim is made (and as we know NO scientific theory is free of uncertainty).

Stanford historian of science Robert Proctor has correctly tied it to the trend of skeptic science sown deliberately and for political or economic ends . In other words, the supporters of agnotology - whoever they may be- are all committed to one end: destroying the science to enable economic profit and hence planetary ruin. Proctor also notes these special interests are often paid handsomely to sow immense confusion on the issue.  Hence, it's no surprise most of the twits who scribble these pieces hail from economics, government studies or political science - and also belong to rightist, corporate think tanks (e.g. American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution). In Hayward's case, he is an imp from  the American Enterprise Institute.

Despite all this, as well as the fact that typical brains take more time to process slow moving threats, I am still convinced climate change will make its way up the priority ranking of issues for Americans.  It is bound to after enough of their homes are destroyed by tornado outbreaks, hail storms, floods, or general severe storms such as intensifying hurricanes.  All spinoffs as climate change ramps up.

Knowing Hayward's connection to that think tank I wasn't the least  surprised when he wrote the following:

"The descent of climate change into social justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause  that has lost its vitality."
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SO in other words, we are to ignore the fact that the poorest, most resource -devastated populations are usually the most ferociously hit, such as in Puerto Rico. (See image at top).  In that instance, when reporters like David Muir from ABC travel to Puerto Rico's hinterlands to show us vast scenes of devastation and the people drinking from contaminated pools to get water,  we are to see them as detached from us - maybe a different species. But lord help you if you identify with them.  As if there is no way such a fate could ever befall the rest of us, especially in the nightmare that is Trump world - where Scott Pruitt's EPA is daily wrecking more and more protections from climate change onslaught.

Anyone can see this is irresponsible nonsense, and in fact if we dispel identity politics in any form we cede the memetic and political battlefield to the Right.  Naomi Klein put it thusly in her book NO Is Not Enough - Resisting Trump's Shock Politics'   :

"It is short-sighted,  not to mention dangerous, for liberals  and progressives to abandon their own focus on identity politics",

because:

"To a terrifying degree, skin color and gender conformity are determining who is physically safe in the hands of the state, who is at risk from vigilante violence, who can express themselves without constant harassment and who can cross a border without terror."

Process that the next time you see the images of Trump tossing packages of paper towels to Puerto Ricans after Maria, and marveling at only "16 dead" when we now know the total is over 4,600.

Instead of peddling horse manure like in his WSJ op-ed, Steven Hayward ought to be explaining to his groupies why it is that reinsurance companies like Munich Re all have climate change factored into their tables, costs, plans. But he won't because he's a puppet for those whose only interest is to milk the oil out of the planet, even if it surpasses the 550 gigaton limit we can extract without triggering the runaway Greenhouse.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jeremy-brecher/79526/a-climate-constitution-in-the-courts-and-the-streets

"Red Team" Exercise For Earth Day - But NOT Steve Koonin's Way!

Image showing rift in Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, the second to form in past three years. A sound "red team" exercise would seek to account for such changes on the basis of I) anthropogenic warming, or ii) "natural cycles"

With Earth Day now upon us, it has been suggested  by theoretical physicist Steve Koonin (WSJ today, 'A Red Team Exercise Would Strengthen Climate Science') that  we conduct a "red team" exercise to finally banish most of the doubts concerning anthropogenic climate change.  As he puts it:

"Summaries of scientific assessments meant to inform decision makers - such as the United Nations Summary for Policy Makers - largely fail to capture the vibrant and developing science. Consensus statements necessarily conceal judgment calls and debates, so feed the 'settled', 'hoax' and 'don't know' memes that plague the political dialogue around climate change. We scientists must better portray not only our certainties but our uncertainties and even things we may never know."

He then goes on to describe the template for his version of the red team exercise:

"The focus would be a published scientific report meant to inform policy such as the UN's summary, or the U.S. Government's National Climate Assessment. A Red Team of scientists would write a critique of that document and a Blue Team would rebut that critique. Further exchanges of documents would ensure to the point of diminishing returns."

While this sounds like a rational and scientific approach, the problem is all such reports have been -pre-massaged to a) make them more understandable to policy makers, and b) often leave out the most direct evidence.  (Such as the increasing second rift forming now on the Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf in West Antarctica.)

First, let's reference that Koonin himself is not an honest broker for the "true representation" of climate science. As per a Wikipedia entry on him we read:

"In Climate Science Is Not Settled a 2014 essay published in the Wall Street Journal, Koonin wrote that "We are very far from the knowledge needed to make good climate policy," and that "The impact today of human activity [on climate] appears to be comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself." Koonin criticized the use of results from climate modelling to support the "scientific consensus" (quotes in original) about climate change, noting that, among other problems, "The models differ in their descriptions of the past century's global average surface temperature by more than three times the entire warming recorded during that time." Regarding climate sensitivity, Koonin wrote that "Today's best estimate of the sensitivity (between 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit and 8.1 degrees Fahrenheit) is no different, and no more certain, than it was 30 years ago. And this is despite an heroic research effort costing billions of dollars."

Ten days after Koonin wrote this, Jeffrey Kluger in Time called Koonin's piece disingenuous if not dishonest. Koonin simply used the old debating trick of setting up a strawman to knock down by misconstruing what climate scientists mean when they say the climate debate is "settled." "...they mean that the fake debate over whether climate change is a vast hoax is finished," writes Kluger. He goes on to state that every point Koonin made is and has for years been widely acknowledged by climate scientists, very few of whom utilize the kind of overzealous language their critics commonly use."

IN other words, Koonin's "red team" proposal as given is merely another strawman tactic.  I propose instead a red team exercise that puts the skeptics on the defensive. Let them defend  THEIR models and "theories". For example, we demand from the skeptic side an alternative model or full explanation for each of the following:

i)                    The correlation of higher CO2 concentrations in ice cores with warmer temperatures through geological time. (Hint: Volcanoes do not explain it given the ACM or anthropogenic carbon multiplier shows human CO2 concentrations are much more significant)

 ii)The increasing C14: C12 ratio from the time of the Industrial Revolution as indicated in the diagram below:

According to solar physicist John Eddy (‘The New Solar Physics’, p. 17):

“The sharp upward spike at the modern end of the curve, representing a marked drop in relative radiocarbon, is generally attributed to anthropogenic causes—the mark of increased population and the Industrial Age”

iii)                    The increasing acidity (lower pH)  of the oceans, as a result of CO2 absorbed and then the formation of carbonic acid, e.g.  H2O + CO2 ->  H2 CO3

vi)                   The presence of  jokulhlaups in Greenland’s ice sheet. The paper ‘Jokulhlaup Observed in Greenland ice sheet’, appearing in Eos: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (Vol. 89, No. 35, 26 Aug. 2008, p. 221). specifically noted an increased frequency in occurrence of “jokulhlaups”or sudden glacial bursts of melting runoff from glaciers. It is this phenomena that has also played a role in the “unusual cracks" that set off the separation of a “chunk of ice the size of Manhattan” (19 sq. miles)from Ellesmere Island in Canada’s northern Arctic

v) An alternative explanation for the rifts forming on the Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf in West Antarctica.

vi) An alternative explanation or model for the increasing release of methane from melting permafrost - plus an explanation for the more rapid melting of the permafrost.

Let's have a red team exercise all right, but one based on examining the actual direct

evidence as it manifests on our planet - as opposed to some bland, second or third hand policy report - which can be manipulated via subjectivity.

Lastly, the serious science oriented person must admit that the best red team exercise in the world will not convince true believers in "natural cycles" or other balderdash to come around to accept anthropogenic warming science.