The US Military: On the Leading Edge Again
January 27, 2012
The new George Lucas movie “Red Tails” is doing unexpectedly boffo box office, much to the chagrin of Hollywood observers who predicted that the lack of a big name white star in the cast would doom the film to a niche audience.
Lucas appeared on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” earlier this month and claimed that major studios showed no interest in the film when he went to pitch it.
“It’s because it’s an all-black movie,” he said. “There’s no major white roles in it at all. It’s one of the first all-black action pictures ever made.”
“We’ve come a long way from when Martin was marching in the streets and getting rocks thrown at him. We’ve come a very, very long way,” Ne-Yo said. “However, even with that being said, we got a long way to go. As a black person, period, we’re kinda constantly in a state of proving, which is something that I came to wraps with a long time ago.”
Despite the studios’ lack of interest in the film, Ne-Yo decided to let the success of “Red Tails” speak for itself. “At the end of the day, you complain about it, or you prove them wrong,” he said. “I feel like this was a matter of just proving them wrong.”
Why is this relevant?
Because today, the military is once again leading the nation in a critically important way, by being early adopters of renewable technology that is saving money, and soldiers lives, by decreasing reliance on fossil fuels. President Obama doubled down on this theme in his State of the Union address.
Another major point President Obama stated in his speech is that the U.S. Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year. He did not offer any specifics, but it is possible that he is setting a more aggressive renewable portfolio standard for the military, which currently is set at 25 percent of its power consumed to be derived from renewable energy sources by 2025.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a tradition of accelerating technological advancements, serving as early adopters and impacting the broader commercial market in such areas as aviation, computing and GPS. For the past several years, the DoD has been playing this same role in the renewable energy space.
The spiritual heirs of the Bull Connor racists who resisted integration of the military are today’s tea-party-troglodyte climate deniers. A little googling will show the current tea party line is “Clean energy is being Shoved Down the Military’s Throat”. (always the sexual innuendo – its a template that speaks volumes)
They are being pushed back and proved wrong on a daily basis, but history shows ignorance has never ceded ground without a fight. It won’t happen unless all of us are willing to let our voices be heard above the small, bigoted and backward minority.
More from NASA on the Not-so-much End of the World
January 27, 2012
There is no “Planet X” hurtling toward us from space. Nothing particularly on tap astronomically for December 2012. Likewise no pole shift, no need to lay in supplies, so says the manager of Nasa’s Near-Earth Object Office.
I know this isn’t a big issue among my readers, but keep this handy for responding to panicky emails from Aunt Teabag and Uncle Dittohead.
The “Planet X” hypotheses, – fun fact here – was put forward by, among others, Richard Muller, of BEST temperature project fame. So add yet one more check to his oddball resume – you can view more below.
Swedish Chemistry
January 27, 2012
Nothing remarkable about this little piece – a bit of explanatory visuals about the chemistry of greenhouse gases – except – it answers a burning question:
How the heck do you pronounce “Svante Arrhenius”.
If you’re pressed for time, cute swedish girl tells you at 2:00.
The SOTU and Climate
January 26, 2012
For those that missed it, the money quotes, 4 minutes worth on energy and a very quick-oh-so-quick blip of acknowledgment of the greatest threat to civilization in history – which is about all you get on the floor of congress these days. Not enough, but no use crying – we have work to do.
Obama probably did the right thing in sidestepping climate change, and admitting that we need to side step it for the time being in order to get other things done. Those of us who do not subscribe to that view would have preferred, perhaps, a fire and brimstone demand to step up our national efforts to address Global Warming and the other issues related to the high rate of release of fossil Carbon into the atmosphere. We might have liked to have seen some of the victims of aridification, tornado swarms, regional drought, parasite-affected forestry and agricultural failures in the US and elsewhere, in the gallery seats where real people sit as emotional sidebars in every State of the Union Address. But, President Obama chose to not do that, and it is easy to see why he made this choice.
Video – Measuring Methane in the Siberian Arctic
January 25, 2012
Large fluxes of carbon, material and water pass from the Siberian Tundra to the Arctic Ocean. Örjan Gustafsson, professor of bio-geochemistry at Stockholm University has studied the effects that these fluxes have on the climate.
Cavalry Arrives – Climate Science Legal Defense Fund established
January 25, 2012
Bullying, intimidation, and threats are the currency of the climate denial movement .
There is a ripple of unease among many scientists who study the warming of the planet these days. Some have faced harassment, legal challenges and even death threats related to their research, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reports.
On Tuesday, the board of directors of the association, which publishes the journal Science, released a strongly worded statement “vigorously opposing” such attacks on researchers, saying that the tactics inhibited the free exchange of scientific ideas.
“Reports of harassment, death threats and legal challenges have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas, and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policy makers and the public,” the board said. “This both impedes the progress of science and interferes with the application of science to the solution of global problems.”
Climate scientists like Mike Mann, Ben Santer, and Phil Jones have born the brunt of this behavior unassisted for more than a decade. Now there’s help.
Washington, DC — The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) has found a non-profit home in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which provides it fiscal sponsorship and logistical support. CSLDF lets scientific colleagues and the public directly help climate scientists protect themselves and their work from industry-funded legal attacks.
In recent years, these legal attacks have intensified, especially against climate scientists. The fund is designed to help scientists like Professor Michael Mann cope with the legal fees that stack up in fighting attempts by climate-contrarian groups to gain access to private emails and other correspondence through lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests at their public universities.
Tobacco and the Anti Science Movement – more video
January 25, 2012
The anti-science movement, including the climate denial movement, owes its beginnings as a serious organized force to the tobacco industry.
The same people who have peddled addictive poison to billions of the world’s most vulnerable, are the good people who have brought you the twisted web of “sound science”, non-thinking “think” tanks, and ignorant “experts” who today congratulate themselves as the planet careens to a precipice.
Those who spread the misinformation and outright lies of the climate denial industry, are useful idiots of some of history’s coldest and greediest killers.
Climate Denial and Manufacturing Legitimacy
January 25, 2012
Guest Post by Colin Maessen:
The scientific discussion has long since moved on from whether we are causing the increase in our planets temperature to fine tuning what effects this will have. We know it is happening, we are responsible for it and we are now in the process of finding out that we have been underestimating it.
Yet, the so-called sceptics have managed to delay action, very effectively spreading misinformation. A considerable amount of misinformation comes from the blogosphere, where familiar and long-debunked claims about climate change are repeated time and time again.
Case in point, Anthony Watts with his website Watts Up With That:
Being called out does not stop him from spreading obvious misinformation.
So how does he manage to still hold on to the trust of his readers?
The reasons are many, and have lot to do with the mindset of a science denier, but he does have his methods for creating the illusion of legitimacy. One of these methods is gaming the internet vote for certain dubious “science blog” awards.
When Watts won the 2011 Bloggie Award in the category Best Science Blog, he gave full credit to his loyal readership:
This was truly surprising. According to the Bloggies Facebook page, WUWT has been named the first ever winner of the Best Science Blog category (new this year for the Bloggies), beating Wired and Boing Boing, both of whom have way more reach and traffic than we do. I suppose it demonstrates the loyalty of our readers.
These awards are won by popular vote, rather than merit. Those that rouse or manufacture enough support, can engineer a win in the submitted category – in this case resulting in “science” awards for a blog that routinely misinforms on scientific subjects and even slanders scientists.
Watts is at it again for the 2012 Bloggies:
Well, it is that time of year again. You can nominate your favorite blogs for top honors in the 2012 Bloggies Awards. As many know, WUWT won last year in the Best Science Blog category. This year, Science and Technology blogs have been combined into a single category, so the competition will likely be stronger.
I also followed up on his advice and joined in to vote, which also meant I had an interesting opportunity. If you submit nominees for the Bloggies you can indicate that you are interested in being selected as a one of the 200 randomly selected voters who choose the finalists.
And I was selected as one of those 200 voters. Thanks to this I am in the possession of a ballot to vote for the finalists and a list of the candidates for “Best Science or Technology Weblog”. For your convenience I’ve marked the ‘sceptic’ sites in orange and the actual science sites that report accurately on climate change in green (order as they appeared on the ballot):
The latest climate scientist to come under fire from the climate denial extreme is Katharine Hayhoe, Atmospheric Scientist at Texas Tech University.
After coming into the public eye as the author of proposed chapter on climate change for GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s forthcoming book, Hayhoe had her name and email contact published by the ever-cuddly Marc “climate scientists should be flogged” Morano, grand Wazir of the Sharia school of Climate denial.
The climate deniers are kicking puppies now.
That was my reaction when I heard that Katharine Hayhoe was being deluged with hate mail after stories surfaced that she had written a chapter on climate change for Newt Gingrich’s upcoming book, a chapter quickly dropped when conservative commentators began making a big fuss about it. Similar attacks have been leveled against MIT scientist Kerry Emanuel following his speech at a forum for Republicans concerned about climate change. The “frenzy of hate” he’s received include threats to his wife.
Anyone who has ever listened to Hayhoe would be as sickened as I was over the vitriolic attacks she has endured in the past week. Being both a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian, Hayhoe speaks to faith communities, explaining the science of climate change in easy-to-understand language and also offering the spiritual perspective on global warming: What would Jesus do about climate change?
I had the privilege to interview Dr. Hayhoe this past weekend at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, where the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise was conducting a workshop and Town Hall meeting entitled “Cures for Climate Confusion”. (web video of the public Town Hall meeting here)
I wish to thank the organizers, Andy Hoffman of the Erb Institute, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, for graciously, and inexplicably, welcoming me when I arrived somewhat, uhm, unexpectedly, to the gathering.
More on Medieval enthusiast Marc Morano below:
Graphs of the Day: Global Temps 2011
January 23, 2012
Nine of the top ten warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000. Last year was another one of them, coming in at 9th warmest since 1880.
The map above shows temperature anomalies, or changes, by region in 2011; it does not depict absolute temperature. Essentially, the map shows how much warmer or cooler each region was in 2011 compared with an averaged “base period” from 1951–1980. The line plot shows yearly temperature variations (from the base period average) for every year from 1880 to now. (For more explanation of how the analysis works, read World of Change: Global Temperatures.)
On January 19, 2012, researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released their annual analysis of global temperatures, noting that Earth’s land and ocean surfaces continue to experience higher temperatures than several decades ago. The global average temperature for 2011 was 0.92 degrees Fahrenheit (0.51 Celsius) higher than the mid-20th century baseline.
“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS director James Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the ten warmest years on record.”
It is important to note that during La Nina years like the current one, although the planet continues to absorb more heat than it emits, cool waters upwelling in the Pacific suck a lot of that heat out of the atmosphere – affecting weather around the globe, and causing thermometer readings to dip. This year was, however, the warmest la nina year in the record, as the graph below (from NOAA) shows.
Despite a strong La Nina event cooling the Pacific Ocean, 2011 was about the 10th hottest year on record, scientists have found. “It’s clear over time the El Niño years tend to be the warmer years and the La Niña years tend to be the cooler years,” said Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. “This year the La Niña-related temperatures for 2011 were as warm as anything we’ve seen in the past, very close to the year 2008.” Every year since 1976 has been warmer than average, according to NOAA. While 2011 was the coolest year in the 21st century, it was tied with the second-warmest year of the 20th century, notes Climate Central’s Andrew Freedman.
