Rutgers Researcher Goes with (Stream) Flow
October 31, 2017
Third in a series of scientist profiles.
I camped at Greenland’s Ice Sheet edge with a dynamic team of scientists in July, and produced a video study on each of them.
First and second vid here.
Sasha Leidman, a doctoral student at Rutgers University’s School of Graduate Studies’ geography program, is seeking new knowledge about the melting of the Greenland ice sheet – a process that contributes to and influences climate change.
Despite its massive potential impact on worldwide ecologies and economies, scientists don’t really know how fast the Greenland ice sheet will melt in the future.
Leidman spent two weeks this past summer on the ice sheet, along with fellow doctoral student Rohi Muthyala and Asa Renermalm, professor of geography at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. The video below describes his work. It’s the third of three videos we’re featuring on the team’s research, along with videos featuring Rennermalm and Muthyala.
Leidman’s focus is on supraglacial streams – streams of meltwater that form on the surface of the ice sheet as it melts. As the climate warms, these streams are becoming more pervasive. Leidman wants to know what effect these streams have on the albedo of the ice sheet – that is, on how much of the sun’s light is reflected by the surface and how much is absorbed. The white ice reflects a great deal of sunlight, but the darker supraglacial streams absorb light. “This starts a feedback loop of increased melting, and we’re trying to determine how strong that effect will be,” Leidman said.
Advice. Consider a real job. Your soul will thank you.
Some employees at Fox News were left embarrassed and humiliated by their network’s coverage of the latest revelations in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling, according to conversations CNN had with several individuals placed throughout the network.
“I’m watching now and screaming,” one Fox News personality said in a text message to CNN as the person watched their network’s coverage. “I want to quit.”
“It is another blow to journalists at Fox who come in every day wanting to cover the news in a fair and objective way,” one senior Fox News employee told CNN of their outlet’s coverage, adding that there were “many eye rolls” in the newsroom over how the news was covered.
The person said, “Fox feels like an extension of the Trump White House.”
The employees spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. A Fox News spokesperson declined to comment.
On Monday, it was revealed that President Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another associate Rick Gates had been indicted by a grand jury on 12 counts, including conspiracy against the United States. Unsealed court records also revealed that another Trump associate, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI weeks ago.
The revelations jolted through the news media, and Fox News did cover it as its top story. But in contrast with CNN and MSNBC, which aired non-stop rolling coverage throughout the day, Fox News found plenty of time to cover other topics, like the NFL protests, North Korea, and tax reform.
There’s more. recommend the piece for your amusement.
Of course, Fox has a nauseating record on climate science as well. Read the rest of this entry »
FEMA Too Ashamed to Meet Puerto Rico Mayor
October 31, 2017
The mayor of San Juan says the Trump administration is so “afraid” to discuss its “deplorable” response to Hurricane Maria that it hastily canceled a meeting between her and the Federal Emergency Management Agency after she had flown all the way to Washington on Tuesday.
Carmen Yulin Cruz said she was supposed to meet with FEMA Administrator Brock Long to discuss the agency response to the September 20 hurricane, which to this day has left 75 percent of the island without power—only to discover the meeting had been scrubbed and not even been rescheduled after she landed in the capital.
“It was deplorable how FEMA acted against the Puerto Rican people,” said Cruz. “What are they afraid of? The truth has to be told and people all over the world has seen how the Trump administration has treated Puerto Rico.”
It is unclear why FEMA canceled the meeting. Earlier this month, Long said Cruz’s complaints about the agency’s recovery effort amount to just “political noise.”
“We filtered out the mayor a long time ago,” Long told ABC News. “We don’t have time for the political noise.”
But other groups are listening to Cruz. The UN’s top human rights panel said on Monday that the U.S territory’s 3.4 million residents are being treated unfairly by their own American government.
“We can’t fail to note the dissimilar urgency and priority given to the emergency response in Puerto Rico, compared to the U.S. states affected by hurricanes in recent months,” said Leilani Farha, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the right to housing.
“All reconstruction efforts should be guided by international human rights standards, ensuring that people can rebuild where they have lived and close to their communities,” the full panel’s statement added. “Reconstruction should aim to increase the resilience of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, housing and hospitals against future natural disasters.”
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico has cancelled a controversial 300 million dollar contract with a 2 man company, which had been hired to undertake rebuilding the island’s shattered electrical grid. Some observers noted connections between the company and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
The Puerto Rican government’s power company is going to scrap its $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy Holdings once it wraps up current work on Hurricane Maria recovery efforts, power company director Ricardo Ramos said Sunday.
Ramos said he’s bowing to a demand by Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Roselló, who had called Sunday for the island’s power company to cancel the contract with the Montana company from Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s hometown.
Roughly 70 percent of the U.S. territory has been languishing without power more than a month after Maria struck on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm with winds of up to 154 mph. Ramos says the cancellation will delay pending work by 10 to 12 weeks but will not affect current work.
Sea Level Rising, Ready or Not
October 31, 2017
2 Cities. One Red. One Blue.
One following the science. One in the dark.
It’s going to be an interesting century.
Climate Deniers at Center of Russia Scandal
October 30, 2017
If you’re willing to betray your own grandchildren, well then…..
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — As national co-chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Northwest Iowa’s Sam Clovis encouraged a low-level foreign policy adviser to meet with Russian officials to build relations with the Kremlin, according to media reports Monday.
“Make the trip, if it is feasible,” Clovis wrote in an August 2016 email to George Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos, 30, a former researcher at the conservative Hudson Institute, was thrust Monday into the center of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. Papadopoulos, who was secretly arrested in July for lying to federal authorities, has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation, according to court papers unsealed Monday.
This fall, the Senate will likely take up the president’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) research portfolio, Sam Clovis. After flirting with other candidates, Clovis swung to the Trump camp before the Iowa caucuses. His early onboard status vaulted him up the ranks of the campaign, clinching an offer to join the administration — a post for which he is manifestly unqualified. Read the rest of this entry »
On #ManafortMonday – Trump/Russia is All About Climate and Carbon
October 30, 2017
I’ve discussed how the motivating factors for Russia’s incredibly brazen interference in the US election is in large part due to the critical state of the carbon bubble – the world’s imminent move to non-carbon energies.
Above, see Fox News interviews with Trump – veering solidly into Kim Jong Un territory. This is the news feed that millions of Americans are seeing – so it is critical that good information be disseminated, and I’m doing that on my Twitter and Facebook feed, and, from time to time, here. Urge all others to up their social media game and circulate well sourced and accurate info to counteract the furious spin machine we are seeing.
First, some background on the charges.
Renato Marriotti, former Fed Prosecutor and candidate for Illinois Attorney General, explains the charges. (from a twitter thread)
The indictment of Manafort and Gates was just unsealed. You can view it here: https://www.justice.gov/file/1007271/download …
An indictment is a formal charge that has been approved on by a grand jury, which are a group ordinary citizens who hear evidence..
In the United States, you have a constitutional right to be charged by indictment if you are being charged with a felony.
The indictment charges the men with a number of different crimes. I’m going to walk through them in this thread.
Indictments list the allegations that the government is making and the specific laws that have been violated.
This indictment is something called a “speaking indictment” — instead of just saying the charges, it lists specific factual allegations.
Certain crimes (like conspiracy) require the government to explain exactly what the defendants did and what the conspiracy was about.
“It’s All Connected.” Jeff Goodell on Sea Level Rise
October 30, 2017
Above, Jeff Goodell on PBS talking about his long-time-coming book, The Water Will Come.
Jeff talks about a visit to Greenland, which is featured early on in the book. That was part of the first Dark Snow expedition in 2013.
Here, in video from that trip, I talked to Jeff as we had just touched down at a point near the calving wall of Illulisat (Jacobshaven) Glacier in Greenland. Jeff mentions the moment in the book, as we were standing on bare rock that had recently emerged from the melting ice, and quite possibly no humans had touched before.
Below, shortly after the interview above, we climbed back in the chopper, and flew along the glacier calving wall. Jeff had a window seat, and was trying to shoot with his iPhone – I handed him a camera, while continued to shoot from a front seat.
The Weekend Wonk: Al Gore on Inconvenient Truth, Ten Years Later
October 28, 2017
We’re gonna win this. But can we win it in time?
First 5 minutes are filmmaker inside baseball. More meat after that.
Rescuing Puerto Rico. Trump v Musk Approach
October 28, 2017
Renewable v Fossil.
Central v Distributed.
Entrepreneur v Corruption.
Compare and Contrast.
Five weeks after hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico, President Donald Trump’s team has only managed to restore power for a mere 26 percent of the island’s 3.5 million U.S. citizens.
Meanwhile the tiny Trump-linked energy contractor that won a $300-million no-bid contract to rebuild the grid, Whitefish Energy, is also under fire.
One businessman, however, has already started to deliver on his promise to help Puerto. Elon Musk has used Tesla’s solar panels and battery storage to turn the power back on San Juan’s Children’s Hospital — and he did it free of charge.
San Juan’s Hospital del Nino serves some 3,000 children on the island, with three dozen critically ill patients who need around-the-clock care.
In a viral Instagram post, Musk explained, “Hospital del Niño (Children’s Hospital) is the first of many solar+battery Tesla projects going live in Puerto Rico. Glad to help support the recovery. Congrats to the Tesla team for working 24/7 to make this happen as fast as possible.”
The Trump administration denied Friday that political connections had anything to do with restoring electrical connections in Puerto Rico.
A contract worth $300 million was awarded to a tiny company called Whitefish Energy in Whitefish, Montana, hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Zinke said Friday he had nothing to do with the contract.
CBS News correspondent David Begnaud set out Friday to find the headquarters of the company — somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Nestled down a long gravel driveway in Whitefish is a one-story wooden house that is the home of Whitefish Energy.
This tiny energy company has only two full-time employees, and surprised many when it received a $300 million no-bid contract to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. Whitefish has never worked on a project of this size.
Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski says his company has 300 workers on the ground in Puerto Rico working to fix a crippled electrical system. A month after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, 75 percent of the island is still without power.
The controversy over the no-bid contract set off a Twitter feud between the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulin Cruz, and the company. Read the rest of this entry »
Trailer: “Flint”
October 28, 2017
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 