2016 SkS Weekly Digest #17

SkS Highlights... El Niño to La Niña... Toon of the Week... Quote of the Week... She 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

World’s largest Earth science organization to continue accepting ExxonMobil sponsorship despite calls from 250+ geoscientists, a guest post by Geoffrey Supran, Ploy Achakulwisut, Ben Scandella & Britta Voss garnered the highest number of comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. New Video: Surveilling the Scientists by Peter Sinclair (Climate Crock of the Week) attracted the second highest number of comments.

El Niño to La Niña

With the Pacific Ocean cooling off after a near-record El Niño, signs are pointing to an impending La Niña - the flip-side of El Niño. So, what are the odds, and if one does develop, how strong could it be?

If strong La Niña forms, here's how it will impact the U.S. by Scott Sutherland and Mario Picazo, The Weather Channel, Apr 21, 2016

Toon of the Week

2016 Toon 17

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists

Quote of the Week

"There is a growing sense of inevitability about putting a price on carbon pollution," said World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in a statement.

"Prices for producing renewable energy are falling fast, and putting a price on carbon has the potential to make them even cheaper than fuels that pollute our planet."

Pressure grows for price on carbon ahead of UN signing by Matt McGrath, Science & Environment, BBC News, Apr 21, 2016

She Said What?

Of all the causes Sarah Palin has embraced in her varied career as hockey mom, Alaska governor, Republican vice-presidential nominee, Fox television commentator and Donald Trump supporter, none perhaps may be as bold or – as she still likes to say, “rogue” – as trying to take down a much-beloved children’s television personality: Bill Nye the Science Guy.

But that was where hardcore climate change denial landed Palin on Thursday: a wood-panelled committee room in Congress where she disputed the credentials of a hugely popular science educator who has designed devices for Nasa and been awarded several honorary degrees.

“Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am,” Palin told the gathering. “He’s a kids’ show actor. He’s not a scientist.”

Climate change denier Sarah Palin: 'Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am', by Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, Apr 15, 2016

SkS in the News

Global warming is real – dangerously real – and fueled by our use of fossil fuels, which spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. John Cook, in his article “Consensus confirmed: over 90% of climate scientists believe we’re causing global warming,” noted that “The higher the expertise in climate science, the higher the agreement that humans (are) causing global warming.” Right-wing extremists often try to discredit human activity-fueled global warming by using what Cook calls “the fake expert strategy” as exemplified by the so-called Oregon Petition. This petition listed “over 31,000 people with a science degree who signed a statement that humans aren’t disrupting the climate,” Cook wrote. It sounds impressive – until one discovers that 99.9% of the signatories aren’t climate scientists. H. Josef Hebert of the AP found that many of the signatures were fictitious and even included the names of characters from the TV series M*A*S*H as well as one of the Spice Girls.

GOP embraces climate change denial, Op-ed by John J Dunphy, The (Alton, IL) Telegraph, Apr 19, 2016

SkS Spotlights

David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef: An Interactive Journey website. It allows viewers to join David Attenborough as-live on an interactive journey across the Great Barrier Reef. Follow animals as they travel across the reef, swipe and see how they see and hear, touch the screen and watch coral grow, see the weather and ocean currents change as they happen, explore high resolution scans of the reef to reveal its hidden history.