Still Waiting for Answers in the Gulf
October 30, 2010
The caption on this YouTube posting reads:
“On The Eve Of His First Organized Protest, Former BP/P2S Employee Turned Activist Tosh Peters Demands Answers From Oil Spill Claims Csar Kenneth Feinberg As To Why All Claims By BP/P2S Employees Are Being Rejected When Temporary And Migrant Workers Are Being Paid. Peters Also Discusses Seafood Safety And The Cleanup.”
Meanwhile, the picture below, said to be of a fish recently caught in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida.
James Cameron and the Governator
October 28, 2010
NO on 23.
Dessler/Lindzen Debate
October 26, 2010
Very useful debate between Andrew Dessler and Richard Lindzen.
Warning to liberal arts majors. It’s long, and there are numbers. I’ll be rewatching this one a lot.
Katrina was just a thunderstorm
October 25, 2010
No Comment.
New Generation Farmers rap on Organic Dairy
October 25, 2010
I’m not a big meat eater, but I’m not a pure vegetarian. My organic farming son has taught me a lot about sustainable, free range meat and dairy, and the difference between store bought and fresh, local meat and eggs. (it’s vast) Here’s some representatives from my son’s generation of farmers.
Konrad Steffen – Accelerating Greenland Ice Loss
October 25, 2010
Konrad Steffen
In the newly released Arctic Ice Report Card, a panel of leading experts on northern ice report on the continued acceleration of ice melt on the Greenland cap. According to Konrad Steffen, one of the world’s most respected experts on the topic, this has already become the warmest year on record in Greenland, where temperature instrumental records date back to 1750.
Steffen notes that, while recent statistical modeling has projected maximum sea level rise due to ice cap melt might be 1 or 2 meters this century, those models have not yet been able to reproduce the glacial movement that is already being observed on places like Jacobshavn glacier, Greenland’s largest.
The official website of Denmark quotes Jason Box of Ohio State University, who says, “It is my assessment that we have had the strongest melting since they started measuring the temperature in Greenland in 1873..” and sums up the the most recent observations of melting thusly, “The Danish research scientist Sebastian Mernild of Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US told national daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten that his calculations show that 540 cubic kilometres of inland ice, weighing approx. 500 gigatons, have melted this summer, which is 25-50% more than in a typical year”.
As the data is tallied up for the current year, according to Ohio State Glaciologist Jason Box, “sea level projections will need to be revised upward.”
The Koch Challenge
October 25, 2010
In a video that’s been widely posted on business and green sites around the net, a Cal State-LA student leader, Joel Francis, who is a Marine Corps veteran, former student body president, and a former debate team member, has challenged Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch to a debate on Koch’s funding of California’s anti-clean energy initiative, Prop. 23.
Proposition 23 is aimed squarely at destroying the most effective state-level actions on climate change and renewable energy, California’s AB 32. The Koch’s, representing their own oil interests, the climate denial community, and all things ignorant, evil and monstrous in general, of course, are pouring money into the state in this attempt to squash anyone that dares to challenge the supremacy of oil, oil money, and fossil fuel dependency. Joel Francis is calling them out, and is on his way to Kansas to deliver a challenge letter to Koch’s office on tuesday. Koch has beefed up security. Stay tuned.
More here:
Prop 23 Documentary
October 20, 2010
With the collapse, at least for now, of efforts to set national standards for renewable energy and greenhouse gases, the action has moved to the state and local level. One of the most important questions on the ballot in California this November is Proposition 23 – a fossil-industry supported initiative to repeal AB 32, passed in 2006, which is aimed at capping greenhouse emissions in California by 2020, and encouraging renewable energy development. Naturally, the usual suspects are out to squash human progress.
September Another Hot One
October 18, 2010
September was tied as the 8th warmest on record, and continued a string of warm months that made January to September the hottest on record.
2010 is on track to become the warmest year in the instrumental record, despite the swing from el nino (warming) to la nina (cooling) conditions in the pacific over recent months. (check the blue data points over the eastern pacific in the above graph) The National Climate Data Center figure above is the iconic fingerprint of the process, and the series of monthly updates is highly recommended to those following the issue. I very commonly use the figures in my presentations and videos. Remember that the points represent temperature anomalies, differences, higher or lower, from the average temps during the 1961–1990 reference period.
We eagerly await the cooling trend that denialists have been promising. Due to be starting annny time now…
Astounding Interview with “Oregon Petition” Nutjob – Art Robinson
October 13, 2010
Remember that creepy old guy in your neighborhood that had a lot of guns and was always yelling at you to keep off the grass? Or maybe you can picture the archetypical survivalist freak in a bad science fiction movie? (Tremors comes to mind.)
Now you can meet that person in real life. My video, “32000 Scientists”, is one of my most popular, because it addresses the widely circulated meme about a petition of “scientists” who purportedly deny the reality of climate change.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 