Climate change science comeback strategies

Staircase wit. L’esprit de l’escalier. It’s the way the perfect response in an uncomfortable conversation comes cruelly late, occurring only after the crux moment has long since passed, and you’re descending the stairs on your way home.

Karin Kirk.

Why didn’t I think of that? you ask, kicking yourself for temporarily forgetting how carbon isotopes show that fossil fuels are indeed the source of the CO2 buildup in the atmosphere.

As the American culture war flares up like a SoCal heat wave, many feel understandably helpless watching misinformation accelerate throughout society. But even as you hit “enter” on a witty post correcting the spelling and grammar of someone who suggests scientists are incompetent, at some level you probably know this doesn’t improve the situation. Lobbing talking points back and forth typically only entrenches deeply held positions, a process known as belief polarization.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story by Karin Kirk - “Climate change science comeback strategies.”

This Solar-Powered RV Runs Without Fuel Or Charging Stations

The cross-country road trip is as American as apple pie. Which is why it’s so ironic that the latest motorhome innovation comes from overseas in Germany, where a new, electric motorhome has been unveiled by RV company Dethleffs. This motorhome is built for the open road, with a sleek design and head-to-toe solar panels so you never have to worry about finding the next charging station.

Ready to roll with head-to-toe solar panels.

The transportation industry is being flipped on its head by taking two of the most basic essentials—the driving experience and fuel—out of the equation entirely.

Self-driving vehicles and rechargeable technology is changing the landscape of driving. That market has been expanding beyond everyday vehicles with advances in things like electric-powered semi trucks. And we’ve seen the rise (and possible peak) of the tiny home market, where solar panels and other green technology is often utilized.

Read the story by Nicole Caldwell from Greenmatters - “This Solar-Powered RV Runs Without Fuel Or Charging Stations.”

The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State

In the Republican wave election of 2010, when Charles and David Koch emerged as defining figures in American politics, the greatest beneficiary of Koch Industries largesse was a political newcomer named Mike Pompeo. After his election to the House eight years ago, Pompeo was referred to as the “Koch Brothers’ Congressman” and “the congressman from Koch.”

Mike Pompeo testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 13.

Now Pompeo is positioned to become a Koch brothers–influenced secretary of state.

After serving for a little more than a year as Donald Trump’s top yes-man at the Central Intelligence Agency, Pompeo is Trump’s pick to replace Rex Tillerson, the administration’s listless placeholder at the Department of State.

In a measure of the extent to which Trump and Tillerson had disengaged from one another, the outgoing secretary of state apparently learned of his firing via Twitter Tuesday morning—when an aide showed the nation’s top diplomat a tweet from the president announcing the transition. A statement from the department indicated that Tillerson was “unaware of the reason” for his removal.

Read The Nation story by John Nichols - “The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State.”

This Olympic Skier Wants to Save the World’s Snow

Jessie Diggins is a cross-country skier on the American women’s team and a favorite to win a medal at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. If she succeeds, it will be only the second time the United States has won a medal in the sport and the first for an American woman.

The American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins competing
in 2016. “Saving winter is something I believe in,” she said.

Diggins is also an advocate for climate action. I interviewed her to understand more about why she believes winter is worth protecting. (The following has been condensed and edited.)

How has climate change affected you?

Over the last 10 years, it has been hard to ski on real snow. Over the last three years, most venues have been exclusively on man-made snow. And in places like Davos, Switzerland, where they normally have three feet of snow, they’ve been snow farming and saving it for the next year because they don’t even count on getting snow anymore. I’ve spoken to people in Switzerland who are losing their jobs because winter’s going away.

Read The New York Times story by Kendra Pierre-Louis - “This Olympic Skier Wants to Save the World’s Snow.”

Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather

He once dismissed it as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to destroy American jobs, but right now Donald Trump is pining for some of that “good old global warming”.

 Climate scientists have long warned against using individual
weather events to assess global warming, but now
 Donald Trump wants some "good old global warming".

While on holiday in Florida on Thursday, the US president wondered whether global warming might not be such a problem after all.

As severe cold and record amounts of snow sweep across the US east coast, Trump wrote on Twitter that the country “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”. 

“Bundle up!” he added.

Read Michael McGowan’s story on The Guardian - “Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather.”

In the US, now is never the time to talk about climate change

Washington: It's as bizarre as it is American – the immediate aftermath of a crisis is never the time to debate what might have caused it. 

A woman walks through the debris at the Seabreeze
 trailer park in the Florida Keys on Tuesday, after
Hurricane Irma hit the area. 

Big losses in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? No – to question the wisdom or management of the wars was to disrespect the memory of soldiers who had died. 

Gun violence? No, no – talking about gun control after yet another massacre is insensitive to the grief of the victims' families.

And so it was on the weekend, when a reporter was rude enough to ask US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt about the impact of climate change on monster hurricanes that have been smashing southern states, he responded: "To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced…very, very insensitive to these people in Florida.”

Read the story by Paul McGeough in today’s Melbourne Age - “In the US, now is never the time to talk about climate change.”

Data show no sign of methane boost from thawing permafrost

Emissions of carbon dioxide,
but not methane, having risen alongside
warming temperatures in a region of
 northern Alaska, according to an
 analysis of atmospheric measurements
 made at this research station in Barrow.

Decades of atmospheric measurements from a site in northern Alaska show that rapidly rising temperatures there have not significantly increased methane emissions from the neighboring permafrost-covered landscape, researchers reported December 15 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting.

Some scientists feared that Arctic warming would unleash large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, worsening global warming. “The ticking time bomb of methane has clearly not manifested itself yet,” said study coauthor Colm Sweeney, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. Emissions of carbon dioxide — a less potent greenhouse gas — did increase over that period, the researchers found.

Read the ScienceNews story - “Data show no sign of methane boost from thawing permafrost.”

Three minutes helps us understand the vitriolic behaviour of America's climate change deniers

T

his three minute plus YouTube helps us understand why American climate deniers are so extreme and this time their distressing behaviour is on show at the annual Heartland Institute Conference.

U.S. Senator, Jim Inhofe - infamous
 for tossing a snowball across
the Senate flood to demonstrate
climate change was the greatest hoax
ever perpetrated against
the American people

The United States senator from Oklahoma and a member of the Republican Party, James Inhofe, infamous for tossing a snowball across the Senate floor to demonstrate "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated against the American people," says Pope Francis should "stay with his job."

Sadly, he wasn't alone: Numerous climate deniers at the Heartland Institute's conference in Washington, DC, had scathing criticism for the pope

Watch the short YouTube clip - “American Climate Deniers Are Really, Really, Really Upset With the Pope”.

Our energy addiction corrupts and distorts our values

T

Barnesville, Ohio, America - it's
 being sued for its water.

he world’s addiction to energy, particularly created from fossil fuels, has distorted and corrupted human values.

Water is an essential ingredient in the modern search for gas and oil, known as “fracking”, that our addictions to the subsequent energy drive decency out of the conversation and actions.

However, it is simply the energy we seek, or the lifestyles that result from the riches the energy brings?

The perverseness of our values is illustrated through a story on ClimateProgress that tells how a fracking company is acting against a small American town for its water.

The story - “A $600-Million Fracking Company Just Sued ThisTiny Ohio Town For Its Water” – tells us that a tiny town in eastern Ohio is being sued by an Oklahoma-based oil and gas company that bought more than 180 million gallons of water from the town last year.

A 'yes' vote reallys means 'no'

America’s Senator agree, but on nothing.

They have voted “yes” the climate is changing, but “no” it is not because of human influence.

Such a stance is typical of a climate change denier with them agreeing unequivocally that the climate is changing, but tempering that with conditional statements that is has always changed and that what we are seeing is not caused by humans.

The changes, they are referring to and conveniently omit, happened over thousands, if not millions of years, while those troubling the world now are the manifestation of human behaviour since the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, a mere blink in geological time.

A story on the ABC headed: “Climate change is real, US Senate agrees; Republican Senator rejectsit is man-made” tells us that US Senate Republicans have joined Democrats on the record acknowledging that climate change is real.

The symbolic amendment, attached to a controversial bill authorising construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, was approved 98-1 after Senator “James Inhofe, seen as the top climate change denier in Congress, announced he was supporting the legislation.

“Mr Inhofe, however, strongly rejected any suggestion that human activity was responsible for climate change,” the ABC reported.

Colbert helps us laugh about a depressing reality

Stephen Colbert - spend five minutes with him
and maybe you will laugh about climate change.

Sometimes humanity’s failure to react to the tragedy of climate change can be rather depressing.

That considered, a good laugh can be the best antidote and who better to provide that laugh than American political satirist, writer, producer, singer, television host, actor, media critic, and comedian, Stephen Colbert.

Allow yourself less than five minutes to watch this amusing piece: “Colbert on Republican climate-change denialism: ‘We’re not scientists’” and maybe you will smile for a while.

Climate change falls in and out of favour with the media

Sadly, climate change is one of the things that fall in and out of favour.

As recent as 2009, people all around the world were taking note and would have acted, had they then been asked and not been swayed by the powerful lobby groups funded via the deep pockets of the fossil fuel industries.

It was about then that the media was alive with discussion about the causes of, and complications arising from climate change, but now the mood has changed.

Coverage of climate change, at least on American news services and happenings there probably reflect the Australian market, peaked in 2009 and then dropped significantly from there.

That significant change in priorities is explained in a story published on the Huffington Post headed: “This is how little time television news devotes to climate change”.

The twist is that while TV coverage of climate change has dropped significantly, the evolving catastrophic change humanity faces from this human-induced injury to our atmosphere has not, rather the reverse is true as climate change is tightening its grip on the world.