Climate Change – Forecast: partly sunny with a chance of cataclysms

The Victimization of Carbon Dioxide: William Happer’s Crusade to Rescue a Molecule’s Good Name

Claim: climate “alarmism” is a hoax, carbon dioxide is good—and the victim of a conspiracy

The climate change denier on President Trump’s Security Council who possesses the most conspicuously solid scientific credentials is one William Happer, who received a PhD in physics at Princeton in 1964, and attained high standing in the physics community for his work on optics and atomic physics—not, however, climate. His contrarian stance on climate change has some fellow physicists scratching their heads, muttering “who got to this guy?”

In fairness, one should note that Happer does not exactly dispute the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide. What he disputes is that Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and the resultant climate change will be as severe as “alarmists” claim . . . and to the slight extent that CO2 does modify climate, it’s a good thing. And that good thing, in his view, is under malicious assault. He is prone to such provocative catchphrases as “the demonization of CO2,” “we are in a CO2 famine,” and “if plants could vote, they’d vote for coal.”

Yes! Plants would vote for coal! Or not. Plants were thriving in the Carboniferous Period, which is when they were also dying en masse, piling up in peat which was eventually compressed into what we call fossil fuels today: coal, petroleum, and natural gas. It was also a time of heavy competition between plant species in what we might call the Survival of the Vegetative Fittest—so that for any individual plant or species, the Carboniferous might not have looked quite like Paradise on Earth. It might have seemed, to some light-starved, struggling seedling on the forest floor enshrouded in the gloom shed by a dense canopy of enormous trees, more like a dungeon.

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Make-Believe on Climate: the Secretary of State Speaks

Startling climate insight – “There’s always changes that take place”

Today (June 9, 2019 as I write), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brushed off concerns about climate change with a string of banal commonplaces that reflected either his own state of ignorance, or more likely a cynical reliance on the ignorance of the public. For detail, see https://myfox8.com/2019/06/09/pompeo-downplays-climate-change-suggests-people-move-to-different-places/

Pompeo trotted out the well-worn platitude that “the climate’s been changing a long time. There’s always changes that take place.” This expresses the fallback position of defenders of the fossil-fuel burning status quo, by conceding climate change is indeed taking place, but say it is a consequence of “natural cycles.” This position bolsters the status quo in two ways, by implying (1) it’s not so bad, we’ve been through this before; and (2) human activity has little or nothing to do with it.

In the recent past, Pompeo has shown his enthusiasm for the commercial advantages of climate change by celebrating reductions in polar sea ice that may open “new passageways and opportunities for trade,” likening an ice-free Arctic Ocean to “21st Century Suez and Panama Canals.” In other words, climate change was a Good Thing. Now—hedging his bets due to military and intelligence communities warnings about disruptions, and a shift in public opinion—he pronounces climate change a security threat to be addressed “in ways that are fundamentally consistent with our values set here in the United States.” Since Pompeo has been the recipient of $375,000 in campaign contributions from Koch Industries in his Congressional career (see profile in Business Insider) , we can be pretty sure the “values” he is talking about are not geared to cutting carbon emissions.

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Whose Hoax? The Carbon Cycle & Climate Change Denial

If anyone is perpetrating a climate “hoax,” it’s the Deniers. For why, read on.

Countering one of the deniers’ favorite trick questions.

It’s not necessarily a “trick” question in all cases. Maybe sometimes it’s an “honest” error, if being honest entails burying one’s head in the sand. But in case of willful tricksters, it’s another one of those niggling questions with which they like to trip up the unsuspecting. Another piece of their hoax to confuse us.

Here’s how the question goes: A carbon dioxide molecule stays in the atmosphere for only five years. So what’s all this doom and gloom forecasting that CO2 will hang around for hundreds of years in the air even if we stop fossil fuel burning?

Yes it’s doom and gloom. But it’s based on facts (the inconvenient kind).

For an explanation, we have the carbon cycle to thank.

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Uncertainty Part One: Climate and Loaded Dice

Here’s a little different slant on the old subjects of climate change and coronal mass ejections.

Climate: the Known Unknowns

Will the Earth be hotter in 2050 than today? What does the science say?

The simplest answer is, probably. A more complicated answer is, we don’t know.

We do know it is almost certain, that absent a 50% drop in carbon emissions within the next ten years, and a still steeper drop afterwards, Earth’s temperature will continue to rise dangerously fast on account of the enormous quantities of carbon dioxide we have already pumped into the atmosphere. But a 50% drop in ten years would be ruinous to the global economy and is, if not technically impossible, then politically so—even more the case now that the leaders of the world’s second worst carbon polluter have turned their backs on mitigation, and even adaptation. Furthermore, even a 50% drop leaves 50% still going, with the promise of (net) zero emissions still decades away.

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What’s in a Name? from Romeo and Juliet to the NIH

The Power of Names, Like It or Not

In the August 24 Washington Post, we hear that ESPN yanked an unfortunate Asian-American from broadcasting a University of Virginia football game, the sportscaster’s trespass being that he bore the name: Robert Lee. Elsewhere in the same issue, Dana Milbank skewered ESPN (and ludicrously overdone Political Correctness in general), with a satire that suggested we should ban from the public eye Bruce Lee, Tommy Lee, Harper Lee, Spike Lee, Bobby Lee, Lee Majors, Lee Jeans, etc.

We are all familiar with the epigram, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” spoken by Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Really? What if the flower were named Kerblunkanoo? Ratstikittel? Skrutabucket? Wine critic: “This chardonnay has a complex aroma, a fusion of pears and peaches with a delicate hint of skrutabucket.” OK—it could become catchy. But that doesn’t change the fact that names shade perceptions. People named Hitler can attest to that. Racial, ethnic, gender, and religious slurs attest to the demeaning power of names. Actors and actresses acquire stage names to spin their personae, perhaps the most famous being the name Marilyn Monroe to replace the decidedly unglamorous Norma Jeanne Mortenson.

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Holy Coal

Who would have known that fossil fuels are a special gift to humanity from the Divine?

Fred Palmer, that’s who. The Heartland Institute’s ~~holy warrior~~ senior fellow has revealed his elegant chain of reasoning: “Because it’s easy to get to, it’s here and more people live better and longer for it,” therefore “fossil fuels [are] part of a divine plan.”.

This is a guy who says that global warming science is “sophistry. It’s an agenda driven by lawyers who make their own facts. . . . ”

I ought to note here that if you are a Deist—which is the most minimal religious belief this side of atheism—of course all Creation is divine by definition. No argument here. But that’s not the sense in which Palmer makes claims about fossil fuels. He means to elevate fossil fuels above other objects of Creation, special gifts to humankind. Which seems to me a bit dismissive of stuff like oxygen (without which, incidentally, coal, oil, and gas would not burn; oh, but oxygen is used by other animals, so it’s not so special).

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Trump Nominees’ Climate Playbook

Fossil Fuel Advancement Playbook Employs the “Climate Change is Real” Admission

In the current week of Senate hearings for Trump’s nominations to head the EPA, the Department of Interior, and the Department of Energy, we have heard variations on a seemingly surprising theme, to wit: Climate Change is real and human activity has something to do with it. Surprising coming from them anyway—Scott Pruitt (EPA), Ryan Zinke (Interior), and Rick Perry (Energy)—all of whom had not so long ago belonged to the Climate Change Denial faction of the Republican Party.

The three are following the same playbook, a series of moves that lead us from the concern that fossil fuels might be messing up our climate, to the conclusion that fossil fuels are the remedy for the potential ills of climate change. Something along the lines of fighting fire with fire, a kind of global homeopathy. Here’s the play:

(1) Admit Climate Change science is not a hoax,

(2) Acknowledge Climate Change may actually be occurring.

(3) Acknowledge, that human activity might contribute in some way to Climate Change.

(4) Question whether the change is happening as quickly as most climate scientists fear.

(5) Question whether, even if it is happening quickly, is it all that dire.

– here between (5) and (6) is the move from hypotheses into policy –

(6) (a) if it is not dire, then other priorities such as economic development with fossil fuels should take precedence over costly efforts to minimize emissions; or (b) if it is dire, then we should move forward on adaptation, for which we will need the economic development made possible by fossil fuels.

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