Climate change

[Daniel1960]

When a hurricane hits an important densely-populated area, it brings lots of folks face to face with reality. Perhaps hurricane Sandy will provide the US a needed wake-up call: Sandy shows the U.S. is unprepared for climate disasters

PassedOut,

Actually, it appears that the US was well-prepared. Forecasts were quite accurate, people were given appropriate lead time, and corresponding areas were evacuated. This resulted in a relatively low loss of lives; as of last count, there were 74 deaths attributed to Sandy in a region of over 80 million people. Propert loss is sure to be high. Whether clean-up crews will respond according has yet to be seen;

[PassedOut]

Of course Obama didn't need Mayor Bloomberg's endorsement to win New York, nor did Bloomberg need to end his policy of neutrality in the US presidential race. However, hurricane Sandy forced the mayor's hand: A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change by Michael R. Bloomberg

 

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

 

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan -- PlaNYC -- has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group -- a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities -- local governments are taking action where national governments are not.

 

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

Every bit helps, but we all need to pitch in.

[luke warm]

Every bit helps, but we all need to pitch in.

okay... you start, i'll be along shortly

[Al_U_Card]

okay... you start, i'll be along shortly

Shouldn't we wait for King Canute to finish first?

[Winstonm]

This thread reminds me why, as I grew up, the children were seated separately at Thanksgiving dinner.

[phil_20686]

PassedOut,

Actually, it appears that the US was well-prepared. Forecasts were quite accurate, people were given appropriate lead time, and corresponding areas were evacuated. This resulted in a relatively low loss of lives; as of last count, there were 74 deaths attributed to Sandy in a region of over 80 million people. Propert loss is sure to be high. Whether clean-up crews will respond according has yet to be seen;

 

My information is that the Hurricane saved lives, 74 is less than the expected number of people who would have died in traffic accidents over the time period. :) Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics eh. :)

[Daniel1960]

My information is that the Hurricane saved lives, 74 is less than the expected number of people who would have died in traffic accidents over the time period. :) Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics eh. :)

Interesting comparison. Reminds me of the research on lab mice. Using a particular drug caused a 50% increase in cancer, but the mice lived 25% longer. Pick your poison.

[Al_U_Card]

My information is that the Hurricane saved lives, 74 is less than the expected number of people who would have died in traffic accidents over the time period. :) Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics eh. :)

 

While any event can be spun according to agenda, the facts remain unchanged, as long as we have accurate reporting and unbiased analysis.

 

As far as Sandy is concerned, it was a significant but not exceptional event. Thankfully, the forecasts helped prepare and the losses were minimal considering the location of the incident.

 

From R. Peilke Jr.'s WSJ op-ed

 

The good new days

 

Sandy is less an example of how bad things can get than a reminder that they could be much worse.

 

In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900—a significant event, but not close to the top 10. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.

 

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that drought in America's central plains has decreased in recent decades. And even when extensive drought occurs, we fare better. For example, the widespread 2012 drought was about 10% as costly to the U.S. economy as the multiyear 1988-89 drought, indicating greater resiliency of American agriculture.

 

There is therefore reason to believe we are living in an extended period of relatively good fortune with respect to disasters.

 

Humans do affect the climate system, and it is indeed important to take action on energy policy—but to connect energy policy and disasters makes little scientific or policy sense. There are no signs that human-caused climate change has increased the toll of recent disasters, as even the most recent extreme-event report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds.

[Daniel1960]

Al,

 

Most people do not seem to realize that the New York (or New England) area has been hit by hurricanes before. While the remnants of tropical systems hit frequently and the area gets brushed by these systems on an annual basis, the actual landfall of a hurricane (or strong tropical storm) is rarer. Sandy hit a little more than a year after Irene. Hurricane Bob was the last hurricane prior to strike the area in 1991. New York City is geographically more sheltered than other East Coast areas, and hurricanes tend to decrease in intensity prior to making landfall. That is not always the case. The great New England Hurricane of 1938 hit New York as a category 3, and caused massive damage and multiple deaths. In both 1954, two hurricanes hit New York City, with a third tracking just east of Long Island (1955 also produced two hurricane strikes). Significant hurricanes also struck in 1893 and 1821, with the latter being compared to Sandy due to similarities in strength and location. Historically, this region experiences more hurricanes when the Atlantic is in its warm cycle, while the Pacific is in its cool cycle; a pattern which repeats every 60 years or so. This region experienced elevated tropical activity in the 1950s, 1890s, and 1820s. It should come as no surprise that this decade would produce similar results.

[Al_U_Card]

Hi Daniel

 

Indeed, that people's living memories are short relative to climate cycles (AND also that the past seems so easy to ignore...)is used to lend credence to the cries of "Unprecedented!" used by the alarmists.

The simple fact is that despite trying desperately and repeatedly, those same advocates cannot come up with anything bad that relates to the increase in atmospheric [CO2].

 

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/UAH_Oct2009.png

 

 

http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/de/temp-emissions-0-web.jpg

 

 

 

And just in case the use of the word "tricks" is not to be taken in the sense of "Mike's Nature trick", how about

 

http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/ncdcoctober2.gif?w=640

[Daniel1960]

There are several competing theories regarding the recent temperature trend. Here is one:

 

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/abduss_APR.pdf

[Al_U_Card]

While technical and postulative, it was the very last graphic on the last page (184) that gave me cause for concern.

Watching the projected solar activity heading for a new "Maunder minimum" is not my idea of a fun time, especially up here in the Great White North. Since those same solar scientists had the current cycle much higher initially, perhaps (we can hope) such dire predictions will not come to pass and we will remain in our current warming trend.

[Al_U_Card]

Back in 2006, the agendists were well into their "approach" to convince, cajole or coerce.

 

From:

 

It's not the picture so much as the frame(work)

 

Research conducted in the United States as part of the Climate Message Project led by the FrameWorks Institute discovered that some of the ways in which climate change is commonly being reported is actually having a counterproductive effect – by immobilizing people.

 

The FrameWorks Institute conducted a linguistic analysis of elite discourse on climate change in media coverage as well as of environmental groups' own communications on the issue, followed by one-on-one interviews and focus groups with members of the public and a national poll.

 

What the FrameWorks Institute found was startling. It found that the more people are bombarded with words or images of devastating, quasi-Biblical effects of global warming, the more likely they are to tune out and switch instead into "adaptationist" mode, focusing on protecting themselves and their families, such as by buying large vehicles to secure their safety.

 

FrameWorks found that depicting global warming as being about "scary weather" evokes the weather "frame" which sets up a highly pernicious set of reactions, as weather is something we react to and is outside human control. We do not prevent or change it, we prepare for it, adjust to it or move away from it. Also, focusing on the long timelines and scale of global warming further encourages people to adapt, encouraging people to think "it won't happen in my lifetime" and "there's nothing an individual can do".

 

As importantly, the FrameWorks Institute found that stressing the large scale of global warming and then telling people they can solve it through small actions like changing a light-bulb evokes a disconnect that undermines credibility and encourages people to think that action is meaningless. The common practice of throwing solutions in at the end of a discussion fails to signal to people that this is a problem that could be solved at all.

 

These findings were significant because they applied to modes of communication that represented the norm in terms of US news coverage and environmental groups' own communications on the issue. They showed that a typical global warming news story – outlining the scientific proof, stressing the severe consequences of inaction and urging immediate steps – was causing people to think that preventive action was futile.

 

Developing more effective ways of communicating on these issues is a huge challenge. Every country is different and will require its own approach. The FrameWorks institute developed proposals for use by US climate communicators in the first few years of the Bush-Cheney administration using a distinctive approach – the strategic frame analysis.

 

According to this approach, how an issue is "framed" – what words, metaphors, stories and images are used to communicate about it – will determine what frames are triggered, which deeply held worldviews, widely held assumptions or cultural models it will be judged against, and accepted or rejected accordingly. If the facts don't fit the frames that are triggered, it's the facts that are rejected not the frame.

Based on that understanding, it can be decided whether a cause is best served by repeating or breaking dominant frames of discourse, or reframing an issue using different concepts, language and images, to evoke a different way of thinking, facilitating alternative choices.

 

Applying this approach to communications on climate change in the United States, the FrameWorks Institute drew several conclusions:

 

it recommended placing the issue in the context of higher-level values, such as responsibility, stewardship, competence, vision and ingenuity

it proposed that action to prevent climate change should be characterised as being about new thinking, new technologies, planning ahead, smartness, forward-thinking, balanced alternatives, efficiency, prudence and caring

conversely, it proposed that opponents of action be charged with the reverse of these values – irresponsibility, old thinking and inefficiency.

FrameWorks also recommended using a simplifying model, analogy or metaphor to help the public understand how global warming works – a "conceptual hook" to make sense of information about the issue. Instead of the "greenhouse-gas effect", which was found did not perform for most people, FrameWorks recommended talking about the "CO2 blanket" or "heat-trap" to set up appropriate reasoning. This would help, it argued, to refocus communications towards establishing the man-made causes of the problem and the solutions that already exist to address it, suggesting that humans can and should act to prevent the problem now.

 

The need to evoke the existence and effectiveness of solutions upfront, the FrameWorks research stressed, was paramount. And if the consequences of climate change are cited, the analysis concluded they should not appear extreme in size or scale, should put humans at the centre, made to fit with personal experience and involve shorter timelines – twenty years not 200.

 

Research will be published later in 2006 by the Institute for Public Policy Research on how climate change can better be communicated in Britain. Initial findings confirm many aspects of the FrameWorks Institute's analysis of the problem, if not all their recommended solutions.

[Al_U_Card]

Is there no end to their calumny?

 

Just google "28gate" and stare in disbelief. The "climate-science" racket is all about everything except the climate...

[dwar0123]

I am honestly impressed by your tenacity.

 

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer and millions have died, I am sure you will still believe just as strongly then as you do now. Your mind has a wonderful way of warping reality.

[Cascade]

I am honestly impressed by your tenacity.

 

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer and millions have died, I am sure you will still believe just as strongly then as you do now. Your mind has a wonderful way of warping reality.

 

There have been decades of this without any significant warming why would we expect at this point that the world will be 4 degrees warmer in 50 years?

[billw55]

I am honestly impressed by your tenacity.

 

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer and millions have died, I am sure you will still believe just as strongly then as you do now. Your mind has a wonderful way of warping reality.

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer (or however much) and millions have died (or however many), I do not want to be lamenting the hundreds of billions of dollars (or however much) that could have been used to help them, but was instead squandered on futile attempts at prevention.

 

Yes the world is getting warmer. We need to adapt.

[dwar0123]

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer (or however much) and millions have died (or however many), I do not want to be lamenting the hundreds of billions of dollars (or however much) that could have been used to help them, but was instead squandered on futile attempts at prevention.

 

Yes the world is getting warmer. We need to adapt.

I am not sure where you think we disagree.

 

Unless you are under the impression that adaption is free?

[Al_U_Card]

I am not sure where you think we disagree.

 

Unless you are under the impression that adaption is free?

 

Certainly proven to be less expensive than the pipe-dream of controlling global climate with a carbon tax or exchange trading scheme. Tax and scheme....interesting but not as interesting as where you get your actual information and data from rather than the propaganda that you are presenting.

 

BTW, how about this for the scandal-plagued BBC and its approach to "climate" reporting?

 

From Lions and tigers and bears, oh no!

 

The BBC and broken Hockey Stick?

 

In March 2006 the BBC aired a program called Meltdown, (

) where the presenter posed as a mildly sceptical individual, trying to resolve the arguments for and against man-made climate change. The culmination of the program was the hockey stick graph, with the intention to show clear and unprecedented ‘dangerous’ climate change and that previous warm periods like the Medieval Warm Period were minimised.

 

The fact that the ‘hockey stick’ had been discredited seems lost on the BBC, and they go to a scientist very clearly on one side of the debate to explain it to the viewer. No mention of the controversy, no mention of McIntyre & McKitrick’s papers and in fact the BBC producer is telling Briffa what he must do to convey the message of the program, to discredit sceptical ideas and convince the viewer of the consensus scientific arguments.

 

Hi Keith, [briffa]

Good to talk to you this morning. Just a few thoughts to reiterate what we’re hoping to get out of filming tomorrow.

 

1) Your interview appears at a crucial point in the film. Up until now our presenter (Paul Rose, he’ll be there tomorrow) has followed two conflicting thoughts. On the one hand he’s understood that the world is currently getting warmer.

 

But on the other he’s discovered lots of historical stories (the Bronze Age, the MWP, the LIA) which tell him that climate changes naturally all the time. In trying to resolve this paradox he’s come across this thing called the hockey stick curve, and he’s come to you to explain it to him.

 

2) Your essential job is to “prove” to Paul that what we’re experiencing now is NOT just another of those natural fluctuations we’ve seen in the past. The hockey stick curve is a crucial piece of evidence because it shows how abnormal the present period is – the present

warming is unprecedented in speed and amplitude, something like that.

 

This is a very bigmoment in the film when Paul is finally convinced of the reality of man made global

warming.

 

3) The hockey stick curve shows that what Paul thought were big climate events (the Bronze Age maximum, the MWP, the LIA) actually when looked at in a global context weren’t quite as dramatic as he thought. They’re there, but they are nothing like as sudden or big.

 

4) Paul can question you on things like: How reliable is the hockey stick curve? How do you work out past climate (cue for you to talk about proxies)? What drives all the “natural”

fluctations in climate (this can be answered in very broad terms eg it’s down to changes in the sun’s output, volcanoes etc)

 

5) In terms of filming my first choice is to do it as a projection in Zicer, where you show the Mann curve, then flick up as many other ones as you think are important (within reason!) and elaborate the point that what’s happening now is unprecedented compared to these historic records. In my ideal world, you walk right up to the projector image and

point things out on the screen, with parts of the projected image falling on your heads and shoulders. Stills of tree rings or anything else climate related eg ice cores, corals,

would also work as powerpoints, because you could talk about them as egs of proxies.

 

Hopefully this makes it clear what I’m trying to achieve.” (email 1683)

 

Looking back on this I wonder how Keith Briffa felt about this request, as in the original emails, he was disagreeing with other scientist and saying he thought it might be as least as warm a thousand years ago.

[Al_U_Card]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0aFPXr4n4

[Al_U_Card]

Now, the CAGW alarmists would have us believe that this "dirty" weather is unprecedented (not even close, historically) and a direct result of our (not really very) warming planet. All because of us and our nasty CO2...

 

Al Gore is putting on another of his 24 hour rants on Current TV (before he bails on that, making out like a bandit). Happily Anthony Watts is putting up a webcast that will run concurrently and will showcase actual science and real data rather than the advocate hyperbole that AG promulgates.

 

See for yourself:

 

Cooler heads prevail over hot air...

[blackshoe]

"Advocate hyperbole" is bread and butter to a politician. Al Gore is a politician.

[Al_U_Card]

"Advocate hyperbole" is bread and butter to a politician. Al Gore is a politician.

And he is no longer subject to the public scrutiny that the political process affords.

 

p.s. Thanks for quoting Jillybean. Along with Caryn42, my two most favorite BBO members ♥♥

[luke warm]

our friends in the u.k. siad global warming stopped 16 years ago... i have no idea if their claim is accurate, but there it is

[Daniel1960]

I am honestly impressed by your tenacity.

 

In 50 years when the world is 4 degrees warmer and millions have died, I am sure you will still believe just as strongly then as you do now. Your mind has a wonderful way of warping reality.

You should probably say IF. Considering that over the past 100 years, the world temperature has only increased 0.35 degrees (unless you are quoting Fahrenheit), your rate of increase is twenty-fold higher that recently observed. Do you have any reason to believe that we will experience such a drastic increase in the coming five decades compared to the previous 10?