Who could have imagined that a film of him giving a PowerPoint presentation about climate science would be the 5th highest grossing documentary of all time in this country?

Yet filmmaker/scientist Randy Olson wrote this month:

You want to know why Al Gore and his movie have proven to be such an abject failure? (And yes, failure is the right word — polling shows no net increase in public concern about global warming in the years following the movie — for two decades its been roughly a third of the public who are seriously worried about global warming.) It’s for this very reason. A very dull and dispassionate voice was chosen to deliver a supposedly dire and passionate message. It was one of the worst cases of bad casting in history. Gore is ultimately “a scientist” when it comes to communication instincts. You can see it played out in his movie and two books as he’s slowly come to the realization that you need something more than information to reach the masses. Duh.

Ouch.

I’ll come back to the issue of polling, which I don’t actually think bears this view out  — even if it were a reasonable metric for judging the success of a documentary.

But what floored me is that I had just finished Olson’s pretty good book, Don’t Be Such a Scientist:  Talking Substance in an Age of Style.  In that book, just published in late August 2009, Olson says almost the exact opposite (pages 107 – 108):

Before I begin this discussion, I want to make my overall opinion clear concerning Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. It is, plainly and simply, the most important and best-made piece of environmental media and history. End of story.

You can talk about Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and how it gave birth to the entire environmental movement, but Al Gore’s movie took the broadest and most urgent environmental issue and jumped it up from background noise to buzzword. There’s no point talking about any shortcomings as if they mattered. You can expect only so much from a single piece of media. His movie went way beyond what anyone could have realistically expected. In the spring of 2006, when I was at the Tribeca film Festival with Flock of Dodos, I heard skeptics in the independent film world laughing about Al’s movie being “a PowerPoint talk — who’s gonna wanna buy a ticket to a movie theater to see that?”  Most of them couldn’t believe it when the movie scored over $50 million in worldwide box office. It was an unmitigated success that deserved to win both an Academy award and the Nobel Prize, and, guess what, it did. Total success….

The movie is a personal narrative by former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore about his lifelong connection to the topic of global warming, dating back to his undergraduate days. Interwoven with his PowerPoint presentation of the impending risks of global warming are personal insights, in which Gore reveals the pain of tragedies involving his sister and his son, as well as occasional humorous quips…..

The Al Gore movie is slick, cool, and as hip as the formerly dull vice president could possibly be package.  It scores close to an A for style.  And when it comes to substance, it has plenty. That’s why he won an Oscar — it’s rich in both substance and style.

You can check these quotes on Amazon here.

I agree with this part of Olson’s assessment in the book.  And I’ll give my “review” of his book at the end.

Gore has become a terrific speaker on a very difficult subject — climate science — as anyone who has heard him in recent years can attest.  Of course, he’s been demonized by the anti-science ideologues, which limits how effective a communicator he can be to the groups who find the anti-science ideologues credible — but that is also true of many actual first-rate climate scientists, like Hansen, Schneider, Mann, Santer and so on.

Gore’s film is remarkably accurate — far more accurate than the body of work of any practicing climate journalist.  I discussed the issues raised about a handful of the thousands of facts presented in the movie here. But let me again refer people to RealClimate’s analysis of the UK court case on the film:

Overall, our verdict is that the 9 points are not “errors” at all (with possibly one unwise choice of tense on the island evacuation point).

So it was a staggeringly effective documentary that was substantive and accurate.  But what about the polling?  Well, let me just note that the highest grossing documentary of all time in this country is Fahrenheit 9/11, released June 2004 — and Bush still got reelected!

Also, here is the most recent Gallup polling on one of the central issues addressed by Gore’s movie:

In fact, Gore’s movie and book and the temporary media surge around it I think can be plausibly said to have contributed to the slight and temporary improvement in numbers here from early 2006 to early 2008.  Of course, it’s hard to separate out the impact from the IPCC reports released in 2007.  But there is certainly no evidence that Gore’s film or his media outreach on it had no impact or failed.  He can’t be blamed for poll numbers nearly 4 years later!

Recently, of course, there has been a massive uptick in the disinformation campaign and a worsening of media coverage (see Boykoff on “Exaggerating Denialism: Media Representations of Outlier Views on Climate Change”).  And at the same time, many in the environmental community and political world decided to downplay talk of global warming (see Messaging 101b: EcoAmerica’s phrase ‘our deteriorating atmosphere’ isn’t going to replace ‘global warming’ — and that’s a good thing).  And there are many, many other factors that have affected recent polling, as I’ve written:  “One more reason that recent U.S. polling on global warming is down slightly” and “Large majority of Americans continue to believe global warming is real and trust scientists.”

Gore himself has been pushing action on clean energy as much as he has been talking about global warming recently (partly I think in response to criticisms of the original movie for not offering enough solutions).  And the polling shows public support for action on climate and clean energy remains very strong, as I’ve reported over and over again (see “Overwhelming US Public Support for Global Warming Action” and “Memo to policymakers: Public STILL favors the transition to clean energy“).  So that message is working.

There is no perfect messenger — just as there is no single form of communication.  Some folks make documentary films.  Some folks blog.  And as I said, the anti-science crowd demonizes all of the best messengers on the science, in an effort to limit their effectiveness.

Don’t Be Such a Scientist

Finally, I can recommend Don’t Be Such a Scientist for non-climate scientists who want some insight into better communications and messaging told in a pretty entertaining, personalized fashion.  I think the overall recommendations for better communications and dealing with the media are useful for general scientists.  Indeed, I think we needed many such books, and I would urge scientists to read as much on the subject as possible.  After all, science journalism is “basically going out of existence,” so scientists will need to figure out how to talk to the public directly.

But I think that climate scientists are in a completely different ballgame, with a much, much tougher media environment than most scientists have to deal with — along with a powerful disinformation campaign that requires a different messaging strategy.  When one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, Nature, editorializes — “Scientists must now emphasize the science, while acknowledging that they are in a street fight” — you know you are in a very different communications environment than scientists have ever seen before.

We all have strengths and weaknesses as communicators.  The trick is to find the venues that best take advantage of your strengths while continually working to overcome your weaknesses.  But now that we are in a street fight, we can’t expect any one person to win it for the rest us.

Every single one of us needs to work hard to improve our messaging and communicate on this subject in every venue — because the future of all our children and grandchildren and future generations are at stake.

Below is an excerpt from the Friday Greenwire story (subs. req’d), “Treaty, regs won’t solve warming problems, former NYT reporter warns.”

If the quotes are inaccurate or incomplete, the former lead climate reporter for the paper of record can clarify and/or expand upon his remarks here or at DotEarth:

[UPDATE:  Revkin's initial elaboration on his comments are here.]

Policymakers should abandon the notion that a binding international agreement will be the primary tool for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, a former New York Times climate reporter told an environmental law conference here yesterday.

Andrew Revkin, who left the Times last year and is now a fellow at Pace University’s Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, said regulations probably aren’t the best way to address global warming. But he cautioned that he was not advocating tearing up the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

That treaty, he said, has spurred spending and “soft commitments” for “moving people away from business as usual,” Revkin told the American Bar Association’s Conference on Environmental Law. “But,” he added, “there’s a difference between wishful and aspirational.”

U.N. negotiations in Copenhagen last year failed to produce a binding agreement, in part, because each nation had a completely different objective, he said.

“Sub-Saharan Africa wants money, Europe wants influence on the process, the U.S. wants what Congress will pass, and China is China,” Revkin said. “There’s not much more to say.

“How do you have a negotiation when everyone’s coming with a different orientation of what the problem is?”

Well, it isn’t easy, but the commitments that were put on the table last year in the months leading up to Copenhagen were quite real for most countries — see, for instance, “Brazil’s Lula turns Copenhagen pledge to cut CO2 emissions into law.”  Europe now seems likely to pursue its target strictly as a matter of maintaining competitiveness with China and Japan in clean energy and who  doubt that China will easily beat its target.  And  these commitments by themselves would put the world 65% of the way toward the needed 2020 target for stabilization at 450 ppm (as discussed here).

Maybe the U.S. political system is incapable of taking the necessary action to enable a global deal, but part of that is certainly due to the media’s own belief –  as conveyed in countless stories –  that national and international action is a fantasy and that the problem isn’t as serious as the scientific literature and leading climate scientists say.

Revkin also urged policymakers to eliminate the term “adaptation” because it implies there’s something definite that humans can adjust to. “Resilience,” he said, better captures scientists’ uncertainty about the severity of climate change’s impacts.

“‘Adaptation’ implies a faux sense of concreteness and that we know the change that’s coming,” he said. “We need changes in values, not changes in laws or regulations.”

Among those changes, he said, could mean embracing genetically modified crops that can be tailored to changing conditions.

“The idea that we’re going to fix the climate change problem or solve global warming has always been a fantasy, totally wishful, from my standpoint,” he said.

Revkin also brought up population control, an issue that earned him a bashing from conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh late last year.

As an example of “resilience,” Revkin recommended improving sanitation in schools in developing countries so girls would stay in school instead of adding to the population of at-risk humans.

“If girls don’t go to school, they have more kids,” he said. “And they end up increasing climate exposure.”

I think it’s great to improve sanitation and have more girls in developing country stay in school.  If we get to 750 to 1000 ppm, which is where we’re headed on our current emissions path, I wouldn’t call that resilience:

• M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F

• U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: “Recent observations confirm … the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised” — 1000 ppm

Science advisor John Holdren divided things into mitigation, adaptation, and misery.  You do the first two to minimize the third.  But if you don’t do the first one, you mostly end up with misery.  “Resilience” implies a faux sense that we don’t know what’s going to happen if we buy into the myth that solving global warming is a fantasy.  We do.  “Resilience” implies a faux sense that what’s coming is something we can easily bounce back from.  If only (see NOAA stunner: Climate change “largely irreversible for 1000 years,” with permanent Dust Bowls in Southwest and around the globe).

Anyway, the quotes in the Greenwire story are too short and too lacking in definition of key terms to know what it is that Revkin is really trying to say.  He has certainly indicated to me in the past that he understands we risk 700 to 1000 ppm if we keep doing what we’re doing.  Two years ago, he interviewed Nobel laureate Sherwood Rowland, who agrees with the view we’re headed to 1000 ppm.

Naturally, scientists haven’t spent a lot of time studying the impacts of tripling or quadrupling atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from preindustrial levels — because they never thought humanity would be so self-destructive as to ignore the warnings.

But in the last two or three years the scientific literature has certainly given a clear enough indication as to what we risk by century’s end  on our current emissions path:

• An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water
• Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!”

And that’s just business as usual.  The worst case –  current emissions path plus  strong carbon cycle amplifying feedbacks — is much worse much sooner:

• UK Met Office: Catastrophic climate change, 13-18°F over most of U.S. and 27°F in the Arctic, could happen in 50 years, but “we do have time to stop it if we cut greenhouse gas emissions soon.”

Since Revkin is now clearly freer to express his own views on global warming, I’d be interested to know:

1. What specific set of policies and strategies does he think the world should embrace?
2. What does he think the world is likely to do, what CO2 concentrations would that take us to in 2100, and what kind of impacts does he expect that would bring about?
3. What concentration levels and impacts would result if we actually kept listening to the like of WattsUpWithThat?

UPDATE:  Revkin writes here that “Joe poses some good questions” and “I will be more directly describing my current view of the path forward soon here in what might be called Dot Earth 2.0.”

Revkin wrote “I’d like to thank Joe Romm for not jumping to conclusions based on what appears to be a substantial mashup of what I said in my first speech on “ two decades of greenhouse diplomacy — and rising greenhouse emissions.”  I tried not to jump to too many conclusions since I myself have often had words misquoted or taken out of context by the media.  I expect to be doing a lot of media when my book comes out next month, so I have no doubt this will be happening to me.  Of course, in my case, I’ve had more freedom than Revkin to spell out my views, so in general I don’t think there’s a lot of ambiguity about them.

Imagine that you are a parent of a young and energetic child.

You and your child are on a walk, in a park, on a warm summer day.

On your journey, you come across a large pond or small lake.  It looks natural and inviting.  It seems clean, although you can’t actually see the bottom because of the water’s rich colors, slight silt content, and the glare of the sun’s reflection.  In short: a natural and fresh pond, of uncertain depth.

Now, your child is eager to cool off and have fun.  She can swim well enough to keep afloat safely.  But, she hasn’t developed that sort of wisdom that will certainly arrive as she enters her pre-teen years—you hope.

As it happens, there’s a short ledge overlooking the pond, and your child wants to dive into the water, head first, from the ledge.

The water looks refreshing.  Your child can swim well enough.  You certainly don’t want to be a mean, closed-minded, over-controlling parent.  The ledge is not all that high.  The only problem is, the water’s depth is very much uncertain.  At the spot in question, the water could be eight feet deep—plenty for a safe dive, under the circumstances.  Or, it might only be two feet deep.  In that case, if she dives, your child could end up with a broken neck, strained back, or sharp twig in her eye.

Your child wants to dive.  What do you do?

This is a matter, of course, of making an important choice under conditions of uncertainty and risk.  We humans face similar choices throughout our lives.

Clearly, you don’t—or at least shouldn’t—need to be a philosopher, ethicist, Olympic diving champion, saint, PhD from MIT, Democrat, Republican, or Tea Partier, let alone an economist, to consider the situation and figure out a wise path forward.  Please also note that my description of the situation didn’t have to appeal to any unique philosophical considerations or to terms familiar only to practicing limnologists.

Think about it.

Nevertheless, it often helps to hear from people who do think about such things based on a more careful examination of the likely facts and relevant considerations.  To that end, I’ll quickly mention three examples.

In his great guest post in early February (Feb. 9) titled “Ten reasons why examining climate change policy through an ethical lens is a practical imperative,” Donald A. Brown, Associate Professor for environmental ethics, science, and law at Penn State, wrote:

Because climate change raises civilization challenging ethical and justice issues, the failure to examine arguments opposing climate change policies through an ethical lens guarantees that: …  4.  Important ethical issues entailed by decision-making in the face of scientific uncertainty will remain hidden including: (a) Who should have the burden of proof?, (b) What quantity of proof should satisfy the burden of proof when decisions must be made in the face of scientific uncertainty?, (c) Whether the victims of climate change have a right to participate in decisions that must be made in the face of uncertainty?, and (d) Whether those causing climate change have obligations to act now because if the world waits to act until all uncertainties are resolved it will likely be too late [to] prevent catastrophic impacts to others and to stabilize greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations at safe levels.

As a second example, I once saw the noted philosopher and ethicist Henry Shue (Cornell, Oxford) give a compelling talk about the ethical considerations involved in making important decisions, under conditions of uncertainty, that likely involve risks to others.  I couldn’t possibly do justice to his great talk if I tried to summarize it here.  But, you can imagine some of the important considerations by considering the “diving in the pond question” posed above, especially if you consider your child’s interest in having a healthy future as well as her right to a good chance at having a healthy future.

And, speaking of risks, here are some excerpts from The American Chemical Society’s Position Statement on Global Climate Change:

There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities.  The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.…  We are, in effect, in the midst of a vast experiment with the Earth’s climate—with uncertain, but likely quite unpleasant, outcomes.

As we have heard before, the ‘sapiens’ in the term ‘Homo sapiens’ is Latin and refers to wisdom or intelligence.  Whether we live up to that name, as a species, will depend to a significant degree on how well we make vitally important decisions, under conditions of varying degrees of uncertainty, and whether those decisions actually increase risk and “bring it on”, prolong risk, slightly decrease risk, or aim to put the ongoing human journey on a safe and sound path forward.

Bertrand Russell once observed, “Some people would rather die than think; and many do.”

The great 20^th Century philosopher Forrest Gump put it this way: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) has released a draft paper “Current GISS Global Surface Temperature Analysis.”  It is a must read for warming junkies, but, as James Hansen notes in an e-mail, “it is too long for popular use.”  So Hansen offers “some of the main conclusions,” as well as a description of a rather shocking hack of the GISS website (all of which is reprinted below).  The first conclusion is:

1) Contrary to popular belief, global warming has not stopped nor has the rate of warming even slowed down in the past decade (Figure 21).

The paper predicts a new record 12-month global temperature record, and says the calendar year (2010) is likely to set the global surface temperature unless “El Nino conditions deteriorate rapidly by mid 2010 into La Nina conditions” [as happened in 2007].  NASA notes:

This new record temperature will be particularly meaningful because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance (http://www.pmodwrc.ch/ pmod.php?topic=tsi/ composite/ SolarConstant) is having its maximum cooling effect.

Here are the rest of the summary conclusions of the paper, from Hansen’s email (I put in one relevant figure):

(2) 12-month running mean temperature is more revealing than the usual annual-mean graph, doing a better job of characterizing individual El Ninos, volcanoes, e.g., as well as providing an up-to-date assessment of annual mean temperature (Figures 9b and 10b).

(3) A new global temperature record (for the period of instrumental measurements) will be set within the next few months (Figure 10b and accompanying information).

(4) Urban effects on the analyzed global temperature are small (not a new conclusion) (Figure 3 and several more) – we account for it via satellite nightlight (Figure 1) identification of remote stations that are used to adjust the long-term trends of urban stations.

(5) Upside-down weather in the Northern Hemisphere this winter (Arctic warm, mid-latitudes cold) coincides with the most extreme Arctic Oscillation in the period 1950-2010.  The AO fluctuations from year to year are mostly weather noise, i.e., unpredictable chaotic fluctuations.  There seems no reason to anticipate frequent repeat performances – on the contrary, the slight long-term trend of the AO is toward more positive values and the (greenhouse gas driven) global warming trend has a larger effect than the AO trend on regional temperature, as well as on global temperature.  Of course winter weather will always be highly variable and those places cold enough to have snow can expect greater amounts from an atmosphere containing more water vapor.  The AO indices for the past three months are remarkable (Figure 15a), yet the cold temperature anomalies are relatively small compared to say the late 1970s (Figures 15b, 16, 17).

The paper will need a better summary/discussion section.  Not quite sure where I can send the final version.  The paper has relevance to current public discussions, but the usual scientific journals are not too accommodating for explicit discussion of that relevance.  Perhaps Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics is a possibility – which has a “Discussions” of papers pre-acceptance.  We used that journal for our paper “Dangerous human-made interference with climate: a GISS modelE study” – the referees there suggested that it was o.k. to include a brief section (Role of scientists in the climate debate), set off from the climate analysis, that included opinions about the public relevance.

Somehow we have to do a better job of communicating.  The tricks being used by people supporting denial and business-as-usual are recognizably dirty, yet effective.  We are continually burdened by sweeping FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, which reduce our ability to do science and write it up (perhaps this is their main objective), a waste of tax-payer money.  Our analyses are freely available on the GISS web site as is the computer program used to carry out the analysis and the data sets that go into the program.

The material that we supplied to some recent FOIA requests was promptly posted on a website, and within minutes after that posting someone found that one of the e-mails included information about how to access Makiko Sato’s password-protected research directory on the GISS website (we had not noticed this due to the volume of material).  Within 90 minutes, and before anyone else who saw this password information thought it worth reporting to GISS staff, most if not all of the material in Makiko’s directory was purloined by someone using automated “web harvesting” software and re-posted elsewhere on the web. The primary material consisted of numerous drafts of webpage graphics and article figures made in recent years.

It seems that a primary objective of the FOIA requestors and the “harvesters” is discussions that they can snip and quote out of context.  On the long run, these distortions of the truth will not work and the public will realize that they have been bamboozled.  Unfortunately, the delay in public understanding of the situation, in combination with the way the climate system works (inertia, tipping points) could be very detrimental for our children and grandchildren. The public will need to put more pressure on policymakers, enough to overcome the pressure from special financial interests, if the actions needed to stabilize climate are to be achieved.

The paper itself is well worth reading, though not an easy slog.  Note that NASA says, “Criticism and comments are welcome and should be sent to” the email address here.

NASS GISS researchers deserve the strong support from all Americans who care about our children and grandchildren and future generations around the world.  They work tirelessly to provide the highest quality, peer-reviewed scientific research about the gravest preventable threat the human race faces — in the face of the most monstrous and effective disinformation campaign in human history.

In the United States, designated bike lanes and a growing bike culture have started to garner mainstream attention. And bicyclists now have a giant ally—Google, as explained in this CAP repost.

At the 10th Annual American Bike Summit in Washington, D.C. last week, Google announced their maps feature will include bike routes for 150 U.S. cities. The feature includes 15,000 miles of off-street bike trails gathered by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that has collected trail info for its website since 2007.  [Image Source: Flickr/Hugger Industries.]

Google made the decision after receiving a petition with more than 50,000 signatures for bike routes to be added to its maps. Google Maps introduced driving directions in 2005, and in 2007 the site added transit routes. Pedestrian navigation followed a year later. Now, it’s the bikers’ turn.

Online tools for mapping bike routes have existed for years, such as RideTheCity.com, which also points out bike shops along your route. But with an organization as enormous as Google collating bike-friendly travel information, two-wheel enthusiasts hope city planners and politicians will take note and improve bicycling conditions across the United States, like Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) aims to do with his proposed Active Community Transportation Act. The bill seeks to make active transportation, such as walking or biking, more accessible and safe.

Promoting bicycle travel for utilitarian purposes, in addition to recreation and exercise, has become a federal objective since Congress opened new sources of funding for bicycle facilities with the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, or ISTEA, in 1991. This continued over the next decade and now federal planning requirements must consider bicyclists in state and Metropolitan Planning Organization, or MPO, long-range transportation plans.

The League of American Bicyclists, who sponsored the American Bike Summit, hopes the Google feature will encourage wary would-be cyclists to get on the road, give more seasoned bikers the respect they deserve, and curb unnecessary motorist pollution by highlighting safe routes:

• Dark green indicates a dedicated bike-only trail
• Light green indicates a dedicated bike lane along a road
• Dashed green indicates roads that are designated as preferred for bicycling but without dedicated lanes

The tool is far from perfect, however. It does not yet work for mobile devices, so bikers will have to map their routes from home or the office before setting out. And Google’s algorithm that combines input from bike lanes, topography, and traffic signals is still just an algorithm. Some New York Post writers reported being led the wrong way down one-way streets and onto off-limits sections of Central Park, and many routes in the District of Columbia are missing, such as the bike lane on 15th Street NW, the Metropolitan Branch Trail from Silver Spring to Union Station, and the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

Luckily, you can suggest a route change or make a correction using Google’s “report a problem” feature. Google is fielding these requests and working out the kinks in the system.

Traffic congestion and vehicle pollution is a massive problem, and many would-be bikers are put off by the lack of designated bike lanes in many U.S. cities. Hopefully, the added Google feature will get more people on bikes and force cities to designate more bike lanes. Cities with a higher level of bicycle infrastructure—paths and lanes—see higher levels of bicycle commuting, which then increases state and local spending on such infrastructure to keep those people on their bikes.

Additionally, bike infrastructure should connect to popular destinations—already marked on Google Maps—to increase pollution-free commuting. And more commuters should be educated about bicycling through individual bike ownership or shared programs such as SmartBike, which could be coupled with adequate and safe parking at work. All these steps could help give the United States a greater share of the world’s most bike-friendly cities.

Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation.

This statement in the 2007 IPCC is “basically correct but poorly written, and bizarrely referenced,” as tropical forest researcher Simon Lewis told the BBC in January.

That didn’t stop the anti-science blogosphere from spinning this into another phony “gate,” as ClimateSafety explained in an excellent post, “AmazonGate: how the denial lobby and a dishonest journalist created a fake scandal.”

Recently, the anti-science crowd, from FoxNews to Anthony Watts, has been crowing about a new study that supposedly shows the IPCC paragraph was wrong.  But a major statement by 19 top U.S., U.K., and Brazilian scientists who “conduct research on Amazon forests, climate, and/or fire,” thoroughly debunks that notion:

[Citations for original sources can be found here.]

Scientists’ statement on recent press release on Amazon susceptibility to reductions in rainfall: no Amazon rainforest “myths” have been debunked.

The press release from Boston University describing a recent article in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by BU researchers on the response of Amazon forests to the 2005 drought is misleading and inaccurate. It claims that the study “debunks myths about Amazon rainforests”, which is simply not true. First, there is no myth. Rather, there are multiple, consistent lines of evidence from ground-­‐based studies published in the peer-­‐reviewed literature that Amazon forests are, indeed, very susceptible to drought stress. Second, nothing is debunked by the new study. The new study contributes to our understanding of interpretations of data retrieved from satellites, but it does not prove or disprove anything about what is really happening on the ground. The BU press release also claims that the new BU paper demonstrates that the IPCC statement about the sensitivity of Amazon forests to small reductions in rainfall is inaccurate, which is also not true. While the IPCC statement could be criticized for citing a review paper rather than original research papers, the main conclusion of the IPCC statement – that Amazonian forests are very susceptible to reductions in rainfall – remains our best understanding of the data available at the time of the IPCC report and also today.

The article published by the BU group (in contrast to the BU press release) makes a scientific contribution to our knowledge of Amazon forests. It presents new analyses of the forest canopy conducted using satellite data from the MODIS sensor. The article challenges the findings of a previous analysis of forest response to the 2005 drought using similar data from the MODIS sensor. This earlier study, published in Science in 2007, concluded that southwestern Amazon forests fared well during the severe drought of 2005, reporting that these forests were greener in 2005, not browner as would be expected if the forests were stressed by drought. The new study found that the forests fared neither better nor worse, as indicated by the color of the canopy as seen from satellite images during the 2005 drought. Scientists are likely to continue to debate the differences in their analyses of the satellite imagery, and the articles in question illustrate the scientific learning process as we explore the potential and the limitations of satellite-­‐based measurements to give us information about forest response to drought in the Amazon region.

Forest tree measurements made under the forest canopy following the 2005 drought provide a very different picture of the sensitivity of Amazon rainforests to drought. In tree inventories conducted in 55 long‐term forest plots scattered across the Amazon forest, the drought of 2005 was associated with a large surge in tree mortality and no gains in growth. These findings, published in the journal Science in 2009, are consistent with the results of two large-­scale experiments, in which large canopy trees began to die after three years of experimentally reduced rainfall. The forest plot results are also consistent with studies of historical rainfall and soil water storage capacity and with simulation model analyses. These studies, published in some of the best peer-­reviewed science journals, provide several consistent lines of evidence that the forests of the Amazon Basin are susceptible to small reductions in rainfall. We do not know why the drought stress and tree mortality documented in the field studies published in the 2009 Science article and predicted based upon rainfall patterns were not detected in the analyses of satellite images by the Saleska-­ and Samanta-­led teams. It could be that tree deaths, which affect only a portion of the tree canopy, are hard to see in satellite images, especially if this tree death is accompanied by the growth of vines and plants on the forest floor. It could also be that the tree mortality induced by drought was sufficiently  delayed to be invisible in the imagery of 2005. This should be the topic of further research.

Reductions in rainfall can affect Amazon forests by increasing tree mortality, but also by increasing their susceptibility to fire. The initial fire kills trees, increasing the likelihood of subsequent fires for years afterwards in a vicious positive feedback loop. In 2005, more than 2000 km2 of forest caught fire in the tiny state of Acre alone. During the severe drought of 1998, approximately 40,000 km2 of forest caught fire. These are indisputable facts. It is important to remember that these droughts are part of the current Amazon climate regime. If climate change increases the frequency, severity or duration of these episodic droughts, then increased forest fire and tree mortality and reduced river flow are the likely results.

The IPCC must be held accountable for the best scientific information that is available in the peer-­review literature at the time of its writing. The passage in the IPCC that refers to the susceptibility of the Amazon forest to drought cites a World Wildlife Fund review report which, in turn, cites an article in the journal Nature. Ideally, the IPCC should have cited the Nature article as well as several other existing articles in support of its statement, and not a WWF report. The point is, however, that the statement made by the IPCC about the sensitivity of Amazon forests drought was consistent with our knowledge at that time, and has been reinforced by new studies.

You can find the signatories here.

You can read a shorter statement by Dr. Lewis on RealClimate.  There is an interesting back and forth between him and Dr. Samanta on RC (here) :

Folks,

The press release accompanying the GRL article disputed the following IPCC AR4 (2007) claim –

“Up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation; this means that the tropical vegetation, hydrology and climate system in South America could change very rapidly to another steady state, not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation (Rowell and Moore, 2000). It is more probable that forests will be replaced by ecosystems that have more resistance to multiple stresses caused by temperature increase, droughts and fires, such as tropical savannas.”

for two reasons: (1) this is presented as the consensus view by quoting Rowell and Moore, 2000. (2) There was more than a slight reduction in precipitation during the third quarter of 2005 and, most of the drought-impacted forest area for which we have uncorrupted satellite greenness data showed no enhanced or reduced greenness levels (third quarter average EVI values) as compared to non-drought years (between 2000 and 2008).

It is only in this context that the material in the press release and the GRL must be understood. We do not dispute any other results related to this theme in these two documents.

Respectfully,
Arindam Samanta (on behalf of the authors of the GRL papers).

Dr. Lewis replied as follows:

Dear Arindam,Thanks for the response.

On the IPCC statement, as I have said it is not as well-worded as it ought to be. Strictly, perhaps it can be taken as having one of two different meanings,

1. That the IPCC mean that small reductions in precipitation at any given time cause a drastic response (of which your paper ably shows that for satellite-monitored ‘greenness’ there is no such drastic response, and is an important paper I will certainly cite), or

2. They mean responses of vegetation to mean climate regimes with differing precipitation (of which your paper says little).

It seems clear to me that the sentence is about responses to a shift from one climate regime, the recent past and present day, to another, with less precipitation, in the future (it is the IPCC climate change impacts report after all, and they do say ‘… not necessarily producing gradual changes between the current and the future situation’).

If meaning two of the sentence is taken, then what the IPCC say is reasonable, defensible, basic science: warm lower-rainfall environments tend to be dominated by savanna, while warm higher-rainfall environments tend to be dominated by rainforest, with a threshold amount of rainfall separating which vegetation type one finds. If substantial areas of the Amazon are in a climate regime close to the savanna-rainfall threshold, which diverse evidence suggests they are, then there may be a vegetation shift if rainfall consistently decreases in the future due to climate change.

Your response implies you think meaning one is correct, which is mistaken (logically it can’t hold as a proposition). Had your paper cited the IPCC chapter and the sentence you object to and why — which it doesn’t — the misunderstanding could have likely been addressed at the review stage.

Details aside, it’s the ‘debunking Amazon myths’ headlines, and quotes about putting right ‘muddled understanding’, and, “The way that the WWF report calculated this 40% was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct,” that are problematic and have unnecessarily confused people. There are no calculations in the WWF report (it’s a review), nor are there any new calculated updates on the IPCC ‘up to 40%’ statement in the Samanta paper, and the ‘muddled understanding’ quote highlights the ‘twin pressures’ facing the Amazon, as logging and climate change, when outright deforestation is certainly the number one current pressure in the context of the quote.

I know the media regularly run out of control (its happened to me several times), but in my view it is critical to try and put things right. Most journalists and bloggers will help put things right once they know there is a problem, but you have to tell them.

With best wishes,

Simon

Well, some journalists and bloggers will help put things right.  That’s why I’m posting all of this here.

Let me also quote from Dr. Lewis at RC:

Here is a recent paper that is consistent with the IPCC statement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374898/

This provides a way into lots of the literature. Also, see Lewis, S.L. (2006) Tropical forests and the changing earth system. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 361, 195-210. Available from this page: http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/ people/ slewis/ publications.html

The first paper Lewis sites is a “Towards quantifying uncertainty in predictions of Amazon ‘dieback’,” by Huntingford et al. which concludes:

Simulations with the Hadley Centre general circulation model (HadCM3), including carbon cycle model and forced by a ‘business-as-usual’ emissions scenario, predict a rapid loss of Amazonian rainforest from the middle of this century onwards….

We find that the loss of Amazonian rainforest is robust across the climate uncertainty explored by perturbed physics simulations covering a wide range of global climate sensitivity.

The “Amazon dieback” paper notes:

Besides acting as a positive feedback on climate, whereby additional carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere, the loss of the rainforest in itself would clearly be a significant environmental matter.

Precisely.

I’ll write about the meaning of that feedback in another post, but for now, let me repeat what I wrote in “Science stunner: Vast East Siberian Arctic Shelf methane stores destabilizing and venting“:

It is increasingly clear that if the world strays significantly above 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide for any length of time, we will find it unimaginably difficult to stop short of 800 to 1000 ppm.

Twenty environmental, climate and progressive groups — including the one I work for — have issued a statement “in reaction to a late Thursday meeting with Senator John Kerry”:

“We are encouraged by the progress being made by Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman to craft comprehensive climate and energy legislation to bring to the Senate floor later this year.

“Their stated goal and commitment to a 17% reduction in carbon pollution by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050 represents the leadership needed by the US Senate to create jobs, increase energy security, reduce carbon pollution and protect public health. Legislative details are important, and are not settled yet, and we will be working closely with the senators, their staffs and others to make sure these details achieve the goals.”

I would add that if you don’t think Sen. Kerry is working as hard as possible to put together the strongest possible bill that could get the necessary votes, then you don’t know the Senator and his remarkable quarter-century record of championing clean energy and environmental issues.

The 20 groups issuing this statement are: The Alliance for Climate Protection, Environment America, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Blue Green Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Union of Concerned Scientists, National Tribal Environmental Council, ENE (Environment Northeast), National Audubon Society, Interfaith Power and Light, Conservation International, Defenders of Wildlife, Clean Water Action, The Wilderness Society, Climate Solutions, Environmental Law and Policy Center.

Aluminum Maker Eyes Solar Industry

Alcoa, the aluminum giant, is testing a new type of solar technology that the company said it believed will lower the cost of renewable energy.

The company has replaced the glass in parabolic troughs with reflective aluminum and integrated the mirror into a single structure.

Parabolic troughs focus sunlight on liquid-filled receivers suspended over the mirrors to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. Parabolic trough technology has been in modern use in solar power plants since the early 1980s, but Alcoa executives said they saw an opportunity to refine the technology and get a foothold in the rapidly expanding renewable energy market.

“If you go out and look behind large parabolic troughs, you’ll find an elaborate truss structure,” said Rick Winter, a technology executive with Alcoa. “From our understanding of aerospace structures, we said if we can modify the wing box design used in aircraft and integrate a parabolic reflector, it would give us a light and stiff structure that would fundamentally affect the cost equation.”

An airplane’s wing box is a unit that integrates support structures and anchors a wing.

“Using aluminum and a wing box design we’re able to create the parabolic curve that we want in the structure itself,” said Scott Kerns, a vice president and general manager at Alcoa. “We can make the skin conform more or less to the way we want to concentrate the light.”

Current solar troughs use glass mirrors that are formed in the shape of a parabola and then attached to a support structure made of aluminum or steel. The executives said they estimate that the all-aluminum Alcoa parabolic trough, which is being tested at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, will cut the price of a solar field by 20 percent due to lower installation costs.

Boston public housing to get $63M retrofit

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino is set to introduce today the largest energy efficiency overhaul in the nation’s public housing history.

The $63 million project will renovate 4,300 apartments in 13 Boston Housing Authority developments to save electricity, water and millions of dollars. Toilets will be replaced with low-flow models, lights will be replaced with LEDs and compact fluorescents, and boilers will be upgraded to cut down on heating costs, among other improvements.

“It’s the nation’s largest public housing energy performance contract, right here in Boston,” Menino said. “I think it’s a win-win for everyone in the fact that it is energy efficient, and there is no cost to taxpayers because it is paid for with savings generated by improvements.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will continue to pay the same amount for utility costs for the Boston housing units. The local housing authority is borrowing funds for the retrofits against the future payments. Ameresco, which is being contracted for the renovations, says the improvements will save taxpayers $7 million a year over the next 20 years.

The initiative will also focus on teaching residents of the housing units, who do not pay utility bills, how to save on energy. Officials hope that giving residents the authority to regulate heat in their own apartments will help cut down on costs. Previously, the heat was the same throughout the building, and some apartments simply left the windows open to cool down.

The upgrades are part of a larger, $238 million initiative to revamp public housing in the city.

Approps panel worries about R&D redundancies at DOE’s Office of Science, ARPA-E

House appropriators yesterday raised concerns about potential research redundancies within the Obama administration’s hefty $5.1 billion funding request for the Energy Department’s Office of Science and the $300 million request for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E.

Lawmakers on the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee yesterday quizzed administration officials about the overlapping priorities among ARPA-E, the energy “innovation hubs” and the Energy Frontier Research Centers within the Office of Science.

“We don’t want redundancy, and we’re following the president’s lead in times of fiscal constraint,” said subcommittee Chairman Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.). “We want to make sure these programs are well-invested and meet the needs of the country at the same time as helping America keep its edge in science.”

Pattern reverses as U.S. researchers flock to China

Though Chinese researchers have historically moved to the United States to develop clean and renewable energy, more U.S. companies are now starting research operations in China, where the government’s focus on green technology has made the business climate more friendly to foreign high-tech firms.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor firm Applied Materials Inc. recently built the company’s largest research labs in Xi’an, a city in northern China, and held its annual shareholders’ meeting there last week. The company’s products are used in solar panels, and the Chinese market is too big to ignore, said Mark Pinto, the company’s chief technology officer.

“We’re obviously not giving up on the U.S.,” Pinto said. “China needs more electricity. It’s as simple as that.”

Incoming green-technology firms are also attracted by substantial financial incentives and the glut of qualified engineers willing to work for a fraction of the salary sought by their U.S. counterparts. The Xi’an city government gave Applied Materials a 75-year land lease at a discount and offered to pay roughly 25 percent of the lab’s costs for five years, said Gang Zou, general manager of the site.

“Most of the graduate students in China are chasing this area,” said Xie Lina, a 26-year-old Applied Materials engineer, when asked whether China would play a significant role in the development of clean energy technology. “Of course, China will lead everything”

California gets stimulus for solar power

A northern California community said it was taking the unique step to use U.S. economic stimulus funds to build a 1-megawatt solar power facility.

Yolo County in northern California said it teamed with solar power company SunPower Corp. and Bank of America to work on the design and construction of a 1-megawatt solar power system.

The partners are financing the project in part through clean energy renewable energy bonds and energy conservation bonds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Ray Groom, the Yolo County general services director, said his community has no out-of-pocket expenses for the facility. The project would save the community an estimated $8.8 million in energy costs over the next 25 years, he added.

The system uses plans developed by SunPower that lets solar panels track the movement of the sun, increasing the amount of sunlight captured by 25 percent over conventional panels.

Yolo County said the amount of harmful greenhouse gas emissions removed by the project is equal to removing more than 5,700 cars from California roads over the 30-year life cycle of the solar project.

U.S. wind power growing fast but still lags

Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

“With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth … It’s a global footrace,” said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Although the United States has the largest amount of installed wind power capacity in the world, the wind power industry is “fighting to get on a level playing field” with other government-subsidized power-providers, Anthony told a conference of parts manufacturers, suppliers, wind project developers and economic development officers from around the southeastern United States.

“What the wind industry looks like in the U.S. in 10 years depends a lot on what comes out of Washington … Policy does drive the industry,” he told the conference in Greensboro, North Carolina.

A little more than 1.5 percent of power supplied in the United States is generated by wind, Anthony said.

“It’s an important part of how we generate electricity in the U.S. today. It’s still relatively small in terms of percentages, but it’s growing rapidly … Only in the last seven or eight years has the cost come down … The price of electricity from wind projects has stabilized.”

Last year, 10,000 megawatts of wind capacity were added to the grid, bringing the country’s total wind power capacity to 35,000 megawatts, Anthony said. Industry growth in 2009 was 39 percent, he said.

“China is currently growing at 100 percent. They are doubling the amount of wind power capacity in their country every year,” Anthony said.

To reach a goal set by the U.S. Department of Energy for 20 percent of the nation’s electricity to be generated by wind by 2030, “we will need 300,000 megawatts of power generated by wind turbines,” Anthony said. “So we’re one-tenth of the way there.”

Gov. Chris Christie to use cap-and-trade funds to balance state budget

Gov. Chris Christie has said he is taking $65 million from the state’s model cap-and-trade program to balance the state’s $29.3 billion budget, but he is getting pushback from Democrats in the state Legislature.

The money comes from quarterly carbon permit auctions held by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an alliance of 10 Eastern states from Maine to Maryland. The governor said he also is planning on taking all of the proceeds from the next three quarterly auctions in 2010.

“Next year, we plan on getting back to RGGI,” Christie said in a meeting at The Star-Ledger.

Bob Smith, chairman of the Legislature’s environment and energy committee, and a member of the appropriations committee, has vowed to fight the governor over the RGGI funds and the Clean Energy Fund, which the governor appropriated last month.

“The question that will come back to me and the other policymakers will be how can we justify raiding this fund when there are much better alternatives. We should continue for at least another year with higher income taxes on our wealthier residents,” said Smith, who is a vocal advocate for economic stimulus through green jobs.

The RGGI funds, like the $158 million in the Clean Energy Fund, were earmarked for use in a variety of energy efficiency and renewable-energy programs. In 2009, New Jersey’s RGGI proceeds were $67 million; of that, $22 million has been spent or committed for consumer-oriented programs.

In the absence of federal regulation governing greenhouse gas emissions, and the anticipation that rules are likely to be developed, many utilities and corporations around the country have adopted voluntary carbon credit schemes.

RGGI is the first mandatory regulatory program that requires power plant operators to buy permits for the carbon dioxide they emit. Groups of states in the Midwest and West are using RGGI as a model for developing similar auction systems, according to the Climate Registry, a nonprofit trade group.

RGGI has raised $582 million since it was launched in 2008. Most of the RGGI states have invested the majority of their auction proceeds into energy efficiency programs, except for New York.

“We had a blip, and $90 million sitting in a bank account was borrowed by the state for the budget last year,” Alexander Grannis, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, said at a climate conference in New York City on Monday.

Chu: Bill Key To Besting China In Clean Energy

Passing a comprehensive climate and energy bill is crucial to ensuring that the United States doesn’t continue to lag behind China in the renewable energy race, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today.

“The leadership in China has made it very clear that they see incredible opportunity for them,” Chu said. “The United States should sit up and take notice because we do have the best innovation to guide the investment and the thinking. That’s why it’s so important we get comprehensive energy and climate legislation.”

His comments, made in a conference call with reporters this afternoon, come on the heels of news that China has surpassed the United States as the biggest investor in renewable energy for the first time in at least five years, according to Bloomberg’s industry analyst group New Energy Finance.

Still, Chu insisted that regardless of the climate bill’s progress, his agency would continue to push for clean energy investments. “The idea is that, regardless of what happens, we are going to go forward using small businesses as one of the key cornerstones to getting our economy going again.”

Chu and Karen Mills of the Small Business Administration joined the call today with the heads of two small businesses in the renewable energy sector to announce a DOE report highlighting the clean energy investments that small businesses have been able to make because of the stimulus package.

Harrison Dillon, president and chief technology officer of Solazyme, a biofuels startup based in California, highlighted the fact that his company’s initiatives were not dependent on any climate bill incentives. “We built our economic model to show that we can make these fuels economically without a carbon tax,” Dillon said. “We felt that was important to show investors that our technology can stand alone without that.” He went on to say, though, that “some carbon pricing would accelerate a lot of things,” including the investment by large stakeholders in the utilities industry.

Udall seeks tax credits for ‘community solar’ projects

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) wants to help homeowners pool their resources to buy solar energy systems that serve the multiple households.

He floated a bill Wednesday that would make jointly-owned projects – which are built on separate plots of neighborhood land – eligible for tax credits that are currently available for rooftop projects on individual households.

Under his plan, homeowners that help finance these “community solar” projects may claim the 30 percent tax credit on their share of the investment.

One of the best climate websites is SkepticalScience.com run by physicist John Cook.

The goal of SkepticalScience is to “explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming” and answer the most common questions and objections raised both by the well-meaning doubters and the not-well-meaning disinformers.

Fortunately for us, Cook is blogging more now, which means I’ll be quoting him more (see “How we know global warming is happening — Skeptical Science explains: It’s the oceans!“).  Cook has a good discussion of a recent paper, “Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?” that I excerpt below:

While the [paper's] focus is on public health issues, it nevertheless establishes some useful general principles on the phenomenon of scientific denialism. A vivid example is the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, who argued against the scientific consensus that HIV caused AIDS. This led to policies preventing thousands of HIV positive mothers in South Africa from receiving anti-retrovirals. It’s estimated these policies led to the loss of more than 330,000 lives (Chigwedere 2008). Clearly the consequences of denying science can be dire, even fatal.

The authors define denialism as “the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists”. They go on to identify 5 characteristics common to most forms of denialism:

1. Conspiracy theories
   When the overwhelming body of scientific opinion believes something is true, the denialist won’t admit scientists have independently studied the evidence to reach the same conclusion. Instead, they claim scientists are engaged in a complex and secretive conspiracy. The South African government of Thabo Mbeki was heavily influenced by conspiracy theorists claiming that HIV was not the cause of AIDS. When such fringe groups gain the ear of policy makers who cease to base their decisions on science-based evidence, the human impact can be disastrous.
2. Fake experts
   These are individuals purporting to be experts but whose views are inconsistent with established knowledge. Fake experts have been used extensively by the tobacco industry who developed a strategy to recruit scientists who would counteract the growing evidence on the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. This tactic is often complemented by denigration of established experts, seeking to discredit their work. Tobacco denialists have frequently attacked Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at the University of California, for his exposure of tobacco industry tactics, labelling his research ‘junk science’.
3. Cherry picking
   This involves selectively drawing on isolated papers that challenge the consensus to the neglect of the broader body of research. An example is a paper describing intestinal abnormalities in 12 children with autism, which suggested a possible link with immunization. This has been used extensively by campaigners against immunization, even though 10 of the paper’s 13 authors subsequently retracted the suggestion of an association.
4. Impossible expectations of what research can deliver
   The tobacco company Philip Morris tried to promote a new standard for the conduct of epidemiological studies. These stricter guidelines would have invalidated in one sweep a large body of research on the health effects of cigarettes.
5. Misrepresentation and logical fallacies
   Logical fallacies include the use of straw men, where the opposing argument is misrepresented, making it easier to refute. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined in 1992 that environmental tobacco smoke was carcinogenic. This was attacked as nothing less than a ‘threat to the very core of democratic values and democratic public policy’.

Why is it important to define the tactics of denialism? Good faith discussion requires consideration of the full body of scientific evidence. This is difficult when confronted with rhetorical techniques which are designed to distort and distract. Identifying and publicly exposing these tactics are the first step in redirecting discussion back to a focus on the science.

This is not to say all global warming skeptic arguments employ denialist tactics. And it’s certainly not advocating attacking peoples’ motives. On the contrary, in most cases, focus on motives rather than methods is counterproductive. Here are some of the methods using denialist tactics in the climate debate:

1. Conspiracy theories
   Conspiracy theories have been growing in strength in recent months as personal attacks on climate scientists have intensified. In particular, there has been accusations of manipulation of temperature data with the result that “the surface temperature record is unreliable” has been the most popular argument over the last month. This is distracting people from the physical realities of global warming manifesting themselves all over the world. Arctic sea-ice loss is accelerating. Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing ice mass at an accelerating rate. Spring is coming earlier each year. Animal breeding and migration are changing in response. Distribution of plants are shifting to higher elevations. Global sea level is rising. When one steps back to take in the full body of evidence, it overwhelmingly points to global warming.
2. Fake experts
   A number of surveys and petitions have been published online, presenting lengthy numbers of scientists who reject man-made global warming. Close inspection of these lists show very few qualifications in climate science. On the contrary, a survey of climate scientists who actively publish climate research found that over 97% agree that human activity is significantly changing global temperature.
3. Cherry picking
   This usually involves a focus on a single paper to the neglect of the rest of peer-review research. A recent example is the Lindzen-Choi paper that finds low climate sensitivity (around 0.5°C for doubled CO2). This neglects all the research using independent techniques studying different time periods that find our climate has high sensitivity (around 3°C for doubled CO2). This includes research using a similar approach to Lindzen-Choi but with more global coverage.
4. Impossible expectations
   The uncertainties of climate models are often used as an excuse to reject any understanding that can come from climate models. Or worse, the uncertainty of climate models are used to reject all evidence of man-made global warming. This neglects the fact that there are multiple lines of empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming .
5. Logical fallacies
   Strawmen arguments abound in the climate debate. Often have I heard skeptics argue “CO2 is not the only driver of climate” which every climate scientist in the world would wholeheartedly agree with. A consideration of all the evidence tells us there are a number of factors that drive climate but currently, CO2 is the dominant forcing and also the fastest rising. Logical fallacies such as “climate has changed before therefore current climate change must be natural” are the equivalent of arguing that lightning has started bushfires in the past, therefore no modern bushfire is ever started by arsonists.

Related Posts:

• Clive Hamilton: Manufacturing a scientific scandal
• Anti-science groups funded by ExxonMobil hype email story

A new report finds that comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation is needed to protect Americans from oil shock.  Brad Johnson has the details in this repost.

America’s exposure to oil spikes acts as a crippling do-nothing energy tax. In a white paper prepared for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), David Gardiner and Associates explore the vulnerability of the United States to price spikes in the oil market, such as the one in 2008 that drove the average cost of gasoline above four dollars, if it happened now, in the midst of a recession. The report finds that Mississippi, Montana, Louisiana, and Oklahoma residents are most vulnerable to a new price shock, as about 10 percent of the average driver’s income would be spent on gasoline:

If prices spiked again, Connecticut and New York drivers’ spending on gasoline would go up moderately, to around 4.3 percent; Mississippi drivers, on the other hand, could see their spending on gasoline skyrocket to more than 11 percent.

MAP OF U.S. OIL VULNERABILITY IF PRICES SPIKED AGAIN

Unfortunately for their citizens, these most vulnerable states are largely represented by senators with deep ties to the oil industry who dismiss the threat of global warming: Republicans Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Republicans Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican David Vitter of Louisiana. Even the Democratic senators of Montana, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, have merely indicated openness to capping our dependence on oil and confronting the climate threat.

A bright spot comes for the residents of the fifth most vulnerable state, South Carolina, where Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is working on comprehensive climate legislation with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). Graham’s work in building the green economy is earning praise from the Christian Coalition and local veterans, both of whom recognize the dangers of oil addiction to our nation.

“America’s dependence on oil is problematic in several ways,” the authors write:

• The United States has less than 2 percent of the world’s oil supplies but is responsible for about a quarter of the world’s oil consumption. We currently import almost two-thirds of our crude oil supply from foreign countries, and more and more of the world’s future supply will come from regions that are either politically unstable or unfriendly to U.S. interests.
• Our dependence on unstable oil supplies threatens our national economy, particularly since about 96 percent of our transportation system is reliant on oil.
• Oil consumption is a leading contributor to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that cause global warming. In the United States, the oil-based transportation system is responsible for roughly one-third of our global warming pollution.

To respond to these combined threats from oil vulnerability, the report concludes that Congress must:

• Pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation that limits carbon dioxide emissions, helps us break our oil addiction, and invests in creating millions of clean energy jobs here in the United States.
• Fundamentally reform federal transportation policy to support smart, public transportation-oriented development; assist states and regions in saving oil; and provide ample funding for energy-efficient transportation alternatives including rail and bus lines, bike paths, sidewalks, and other alternatives to driving.

Related Posts:

• The Do-Nothing Energy Tax: $3 Gasoline Dead Ahead