Arguments
2016 SkS Weekly Digest #25
Posted on 19 June 2016 by John Hartz
SkS Highlights... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... They Said What?... SkS in the News... SkS Spotlights... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... 97 Hours of Consensus...
SkS Highlights
John Cook's original cartoon, The Climate Contraian Guide to Managing Risk is the seventh in The Climate Reality Project's blog post, Climate Change Explained in 10 Cartoons. The cartoon and the accompanying text:
7. Risky Behaviour
Say you surveyed 100 structural engineers, and 97 said a nearby bridge is structurally unsound and driving over it would be dangerous. Would you take the advice of the only three who disagreed, and proceed to drive over that bridge day in and day out?
It’s the same thing with climate change: 97 percent (or more) of climate scientists say climate change is real, and caused by humans. So do you believe that other remaining 3 percent and ignore the risks? Here’s what would happen if you apply that same reasoning to other areas, according to Skeptical Science.
Toon of the Week
Quotes of the Week
“The impacts of human-caused climate change are no longer subtle – they are playing out, in real time, before us,” says Prof Michael Mann, at Penn State University in the US. “They serve as a constant reminder now of how critical it is that we engage in the actions necessary to avert ever-more dangerous and potentially irreversible warming of the planet.”
It was just last December when the world’s nations sealed a deal in Paris to defeat global warming but Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, says: “These [records] are very worrying signs and I think it shows we are on a crash course with the Paris targets unless we change course very, very fast. I hope people realise that global warming is not something down the road, but it is here now and it affecting us now.”
“What is happening right now is we are catapulting ourselves out of the Holocene, which is the geological epoch that human civilisation has been able to develop in, because of the relatively stable climate,” says Rahmstorf. “It allowed us to invent agriculture, rather than living as nomads. It allowed a big population growth, it allowed the foundation of cities, all of which required a stable climate.”
Shattered records show climate change is an emergency today, scientists warn by Damian Carrington, Guardian, June 17, 2016
They Said What?
We all understand the need for a healthy environment, but we represent a wide range of viewpoints regarding the extent to which man contributes to climate change and the costs and benefits of any proposed fix. Nevertheless, we agree on at least one thing—this is not a question for the courts. Using law enforcement authority to resolve a public policy debate undermines the trust invested in our offices and threatens free speech.
13 state AGs pen letter calling for end to climate change probe by James Osborne, Fuel Fix/Houston Chronicle, June 16, 2016
SkS in the News
Peter Gleick referenced SkS rebuttal articles in response to a question posed to him by Jeff Pearlman in a Quartz interview. The exchange:
J.P.: And here’s another: “As life on earth is completely dependent on the sun, isn’t sun the most likely suspect in any global warming?”
P.G.: 2, 89, 111, 144, 182 (apropos my number joke above, here are the numbers assigned to this by Skeptical Science).
SkS Spotlights
Climate Caretakers is a global community of Christians committed to prayer and action on climate change. We believe climate change poses a tremendous challenge and represents one of the greatest injustices experienced in modern history. As such, our faith compels us to respond with urgent prayer, faithful action, and the love and hope founded on our faith in Jesus Christ.
We also believe climate change offers the Church an unparalleled opportunity to show the love of Christ in a new and exciting way. While the secular world may despair from the enormity and urgency of the problem, we have a hope founded in Christ that God has given us the tools to solve this crisis. We are therefore motivated to action through love—God’s love for us and our love for our neighbors.
Climate change is a threat that knows no borders, but which disproportionately impacts the poor—the very ones who have done little to cause the problem. The time for silence within the Church has passed. Who knows but that God has put us here for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)
Climate Caretakers is a non-partisan, non-denominational organization. We are intentionally Christian and broadly evangelical in the sense that we seek to integrate our prayers, actions, and beliefs with the truth of the Bible. We do not support specific political candidates, but do advocate for specific climate policies that we believe to be consistent with biblically sound principles of stewardship, justice, integrity, and love of neighbor.
Coming Soon on SkS
- New methods are improving climate measurements (John Abraham)
- Analysis: Is the UK relying on ‘negative emissions’ to meet its climate targets? (Roz Pidcock)
- Paper finding 97% expert global warming consensus surpasses half a million downloads (Dana)
- The contrasting fortunes of Atlantic cod in warming oceans (Robert McSweeney)
- El Niño is over, but has left its mark across the world (Andrew B. Watkins, Blair Trewin & Catherine Ganter)
- 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #26 (John Hartz)
- 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #26 (John Hartz)
Poster of the Week
SkS Week in Review
- 2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #25 by John Hartz
- Timeline: How BECCS became climate change’s ‘saviour’ technology by Leo Hickman (Carbon Brief)
- Development banks threaten to unleash an infrastructure tsunami on the environment by Bill Laurance (The Conversation AU)
- New study finds evidence for a 'fast' dinosaur extinction by Howard Lee (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
- Study: Most fossil fuels unburnable without carbon capture by Simon Evans (Carbon Brief)
- The Grand Oil Party: House Republicans denounce a carbon tax by Dana Nucitelli (Climate Consensus - the 97%, Guardian)
- 2016 SkS Weekly Digest #24 by John Hartz
97 Hours of Consensus: Peter Cox
The solutions to the changing climate are pretty obvious. A bunch of reasonably bright year 12 students could set out a game plan that would pretty well cover what we need to do. The underlying critical probem that makes the whole thing like pushing the brown stuff up hill is the effect of money from vested interests on politicians. It's not so much that they have been bribed and therefore do the bidding of their bribers. It is that they know with certainty, if they don't do what they are told, they won't get the bribes next time. It is not only support for their next election campaign that motivates them, but a cushy job when they leave office - often as a lobyist, continuing to corrupt politics. It looks like we have just missed our last chance with Bernie. This was his core message. Get big money out of politics. It might just be too late. Have you noticed what has happened to Carbon dioxide readings over the last few months - especially April to April. 4.16ppm. I hope this is a laboratory error but not likely.
With 2016 being federal election year in both US (rather trivial entertainment) and AUS (serious head to head contention), election polls are on the menu. E.g. in AUS:
Federal election 2016: Polls point to rising support for climate change action
Most interesting fact is that climate mitigation action demand grew mostly among NLP (party denying AGW problem, similarly to GOP in US although not to a ridiculous extent) supporters. The AGW awareness in general electorate in OZ is now largest since 2006-2008, when Inconvenient Truth came out.