The Climate Change Deniers Have Won - Guardian/Observer

[WillyT]

The climate change deniers have won
Scientists continue to warn us about global warming, but most of us have a vested interest in not wanting to think about it
Nick Cohen - The Observer
Saturday 22 March 2014 13.30 EDT


Smoke billows as an area of the Amazon rainforest is burnt to clear land for agriculture. Photograph: Nacho Doce/Reuters

<snip>

The American Association for the Advancement of Science came as close as such a respectable institution can to screaming an alarm last week. "As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do," it said as it began one of those sentences that you know will build to a "but". "But human-caused climate risks abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes."

In other words, the most distinguished scientists from the country with the world's pre-eminent educational institutions were trying to shake humanity out of its complacency. Why weren't their warnings leading the news?

In one sense, the association's appeal was not new. The Royal Society, the Royal Institution, Nasa, the US National Academy of Sciences, the US Geological Survey, the IPCC and the national science bodies of 30 or so other countries have said that man-made climate change is on the march. A survey of 2,000 peer-reviewed papers on global warming published in the last 20 years found that 97% said that humans were causing it.

When the glib talk about the "scientific debate on global warming", they either don't know or will not accept that there is no scientific debate. The suggestion first made by Eugene F Stoermer that the planet has moved from the Holocene, which began at the end of the last ice age, to the manmade Anthropocene, in which we now live, is everywhere gaining support. Man-made global warming and the man-made mass extinction of species define this hot, bloody and (let us hope) brief epoch in the world's history.

If global warming is not new, it is urgent: a subject that should never be far from our thoughts. Yet within 24 hours of the American association's warning the British government's budget confirmed that it no longer wanted to fight it.

David Cameron, who once promised that if you voted blue you would go green, now appoints Owen Paterson, a man who is not just ignorant of environmental science but proud of his ignorance...

<snip>

More: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/22/climate-change-deniers-have-won-global-warming

*****************************************************************

Bonus...

It is staggering that as far back as 1971 – and even further, climate scientists were warning about the impact of human activity on Earth’s climate. As Isaac Cordal sees, still no action.

Sarcastically, sci-fi writer Scott Westerfeld proposed this:

“Plot idea: 97% of the world’s scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.”

Kajsa Li Paludan @KajsaPaludan

Politicians debating #GlobalWarming. Sculpture by @isaacordal #climatechange #environment #art #greenart #sculpture

10:23 AM - 17 Mar 2014

Found: http://my.firedoglake.com/elliott/2014/03/22/have-the-climate-deniers-won/

[fascisthunter]

1. Climate Change will be the Most Dangerous Calamity Mankind Has Ever Faced

And yet human greed will be the number one reason for ignoring it till it is too late. Yes, there is an argument to made, that it is already too late, but it sure isn't a good idea to ignore the situation.

[n2doc]

2. It's been a remarkably depressing century so far

No signs of it getting better, either.

[malaise]

3. No they haven't

but every living thing is threatened as a result of governments giving in and selling out to corporate lobbyists

[fascisthunter]

4. True... they didn't win, but they have been successful

in doing as you say they have done. They are directly responsible for the acceleration of climate change... all we can do as individuals is pollute less.

[malaise]

6. The corporate media are responsible for a lot of this mess

What we have to do is get money out of politics - the right to lobby government ought not to mean the right to buy the government.

[fascisthunter]

8. Agreed (nt)

[BlancheSplanchnik]

10. agreed here too.

.... the pic in the OP...

[Auggie]

5. Why don't we call them "Mass Murder Proponents?"

Climate Change Deniers? It suggests there are two sides to the argument to the condition and/or causes of Climate Change. There's only one.

[AverageJoe90]

34. To be truthful, climate *doomers* share some blame as well.

Scare tactics do nothing but cause more people to stick their heads in the sand. It's fairly obvious, btw, if you know what to look for.

[ProSense]

7. No,

"The Climate Change Deniers Have Won - Guardian/Observer"

...I don't believe they have.

Topic Upworthy Readers Chose As Most Deserving Of More Coverage Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024677429

[TheKentuckian]

11. We aren't operating on an infinite time frame on this issue, some rather serious consequences

Are likely in the pipeline and/or already hitting and being ignored if possible and downplayed and minimized if not.

As always, politics do not trump physics. I agree that this is a hopeful indicator but that doesn't mean the politics are anywhere near keeping up with actual reality.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Upworthy readers? Try a national poll:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/167972/steady-blame-humans-global-warming.aspx

Fewer Americans say humans are causing global warming now than in 2001. What is there to have faith in?



http://www.gallup.com/poll/167960/americans-likely-say-global-warming-exaggerated.aspx

More think the news exaggerates the seriousness than in 2001.

[ProSense]

18. That poll could

indicate that the independent sample leans right, which has been a problem for Gallup.



Still, here's another indicator, serious threat has increased:

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. OK, another pollster:

The American public routinely ranks dealing with global warming low on its list of priorities for the president and Congress. This year, it ranked second to last among 20 issues tested.



http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/

That survey has 44% thinking there is human-caused global warming:



But 65% of Americans favor stricter emissions limits on power plants, so that's something, I guess.

[ProSense]

23. That's a good poll. n/t

[AverageJoe90]

31. "More think the news exaggerates the seriousness than in 2001." I hate to say this.....

But the (not actually liberal!) MSM often does overplay climate change.....and often to the benefit of Teabaggers and the Kochs and other far-right malcontents.....and to the detriment of everyone else.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. And I think your opinion on that is deeply misguided

and that everyone should ignore you on it.

[AverageJoe90]

40. Then I'm afraid you haven't been paying much attention, sad to say. It does happen, and more often..

than some around here want to admit. In reality, the MSM plays both extremes.....while the truth in the middle is often lost in translation. EOM

[NewJeffCT]

14. upworthy is a liberal website

so, asking their readers what should be covered more is like asking what topics should they preach to the choir.

[Auntie Bush]

9. The Koch brothers need to be sued for damages.

All the non believers should chip in too according to how much they have spent to deny global warming. Other people who are guilty of damaging someone get sued.
Why not the deniers who helped cause the destruction?

If the ReThugs can talk about impeaching the President then we can create a law suit against the brothers and hold them responsible. An eye for a tooth. lol

[TheKentuckian]

12. I'm cool with breaking the evil bastards but they can't even begin to cover their damage.

Even they don't have zeros in their accounts of that magnitude.

[Auntie Bush]

32. I know but it sure would be nice to see one 0 as an account balance

in all their accounts.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Yet, when I read the Mexican press

stories on climate change lead the news. The fact that Americans have their heads so far up their ass does not mean everybody is in denial

[WillyT]

19. Drill, Baby,Drill... Dontcha Know... And I LOVE The New Word For This Era...

Anthropocene

Kinda says it all right there, no?

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. I love the other one, HOLOCENE EXTINCTION

[fleabiscuit]

16. Not good.

Unfortunately, even if we managed to eliminate adding more human caused additions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in ten years, virtually unlikely, earths temperature will continue to rise for hundreds of years from what we have already added.

[ananda]

17. That's some Pyrrhic victory.

Everyone loses by it.

[WillyT]

21. I Don't Think He, Or Anyone, Is Celebrating... Rather It's Another Alarm Bell...

The American Association for the Advancement of Science came as close as such a respectable institution can to screaming an alarm last week. "As scientists, it is not our role to tell people what they should do," it said as it began one of those sentences that you know will build to a "but". "But human-caused climate risks abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes."

In other words, the most distinguished scientists from the country with the world's pre-eminent educational institutions were trying to shake humanity out of its complacency.

From OP.

[Triana]

20. "Why weren't their warnings leading the news?"

Yes why aren't they?

Too busy obsessing over Crimea and missing planes to report anything more important (and yes, though Crimea and that milling Malaysian aircraft are important - climate change is MORE important an issue).

[ProSense]

25. Website to help Americans understant climate change impact:

White House gets geeky on climate problem

By John Upton

To see how the world is changing around you, sometimes it helps to lose yourself online.

The White House is plunging into a new geeky approach to climate adaptation. It has consolidated online climate tools into a new hub, climate.data.gov, intended to help Americans understand how weather and sea levels will continue to change in their states and even their neighborhoods.

OK, so it’s not the most awesome online thing to happen since Google mastered search. But The New York Times explains some of the laudable ambition behind the effort:

In theory, … climate.data.gov … would be a powerful tool, allowing local governments or home and business owners to type in an address — as they do on sites like Google Earth — to quickly see how the projected rise in sea levels might increase the chance that their house will be flooded in the coming years. But in practice, until climate science and mapping applications can live up to the site’s ambitions, it will remain very much in its testing phase.

At the beginning, the website will serve chiefly as a clearinghouse for climate science data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, the Defense Department and NASA, according to (White House advisers John) Holdren and (John) Podesta. The first batch of data will focus on coastal flooding and the rise in sea levels.

Average users will not be able to do much yet on their own. Instead, NASA and the NOAA will call on researchers and private companies to create software simulations illustrating the impact of sea level rise.

<...>

UPDATE: Google, Microsoft, and Intel have all committed to help develop the climate.data.gov project. Microsoft will donate close to one terabyte of cloud storage space, as well as sponsor a competition for climate scientists to win a year of free access to cloud computing resources. Google, not to be outdone, will provide one petabyte (for those not caught up on their Greek: that’s one thousand terabytes) of cloud storage for climate change research data, and will help create a map of the Earth’s terrain in high resolution to illustrate the effects of climate change on the landscape. And Intel has planned hackathons that will bring together students in Chesapeake Bay, New Orleans, and San Jose to build apps to measure and track climate change using government data.

http://grist.org/news/white-house-gets-geeky-on-climate-problem/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024693725

[Triana]

37. THAT should be on the news! n/t

[ramapo]

24. No worry...Mother Nature gets the last laugh

There is little doubt that we have set forth an unstoppable (in human time frame) juggernaut which will affect nearly every living creature on Earth, and most not for the better. Climate change, habitat loss, and just plain killing will continue to decimate countless creatures of all makes and models.

Humans, most of them anyway, think they are above it all, if they think at all.

The truth is that there will be hell to pay. It might come in rapid sea level rise, collapse of the ocean's ecosystem, or perhaps an asteroid will come by and really show who is boss.

In ten thousand years, maybe a hundred thousand, not a long time to Mother Nature; Earth will be on its way to recovery from the plague of humans. It is unfortunate that we do not have the capacity, the humility, or the respect that is necessary to live on this planet without destroying the very essence of it that makes our lives possible.

[WillyT]

28. George Carlin, Ladies And Gentlemen...

“We're so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody's going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven't learned how to care for one another. We're gonna save the fuckin' planet? . . . And, by the way, there's nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked! Compared with the people, the planet is doin' great. It's been here over four billion years . . . The planet isn't goin' anywhere, folks. We are! We're goin' away. Pack your shit, we're goin' away. And we won't leave much of a trace. Thank God for that. Nothing left. Maybe a little Styrofoam. The planet will be here, and we'll be gone. Another failed mutation; another closed-end biological mistake.”


― George Carlin

Link: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76453-we-re-so-self-important-so-arrogant-everybody-s-going-to-save-something

Or...

[AverageJoe90]

33. Not really. We'll likely still be here 100,000 years from now, unless.....

a K/T event or gamma ray burst or something equally massively catastrophic hits before we can colonize space......which might not be impossible; just that global warming won't be enough to do it. We really are special as a species; nothing else can adapt like we can(hell, even when we were still primitive, 50k-100k of us survived the Toba eruption, the severity of which dwarfed even the worst plausible scenario of short-term AGW.).

[nxylas]

27. Plot idea

I think Scott Westerfield stole that from Michael Crichton.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

29. Last six days of readings at Mauna Loa

400.13
401.12
401.18
401.28
400.87
400.73

It was actually trending at about a .3% year over year change before the last two weeks, and then POW! Shot up like a rocket, relatively speaking.
What has to be understood is that this is mildly exponential, meaning that each little increase brings a little more warming than the last, even if the percent change is the same.
On the hopeful side, the US has decreased the amount of CO2 its pumping into the atmosphere by a very large amount over the past decade.
On the not-so-hopeful side, that trend stalled this year and reversed a bit, mostly because the effect of economic recovery overwhelmed the continuing progress being made on bringing in renewables.
I'm pretty sure it'll be very close but we'll make it to the other side with the planet still in a functioning state. Won't be by much though.

[AverageJoe90]

30. And defeatism like this only *encourages* the Kochs and their ilk.

I'm sorry, but this fight is far from over. Let's not throw in the fucking towel just as we've started to make some real progress, dammit! SMDH.

[Exultant Democracy]

36. Time for fun and games with geo-engineering

[illachick]

38. I'm ready for the US to stop...

Treating the existence of climate change as a debate, there is no debate, don't like 99% of scientists believe that climate change exists? (please correct if I've got my facts screwed) The first step is to stop acting like these deniers have something credible to say against climate change existing we are past that, its here and its ready to kill us point. blank and the period. The only debate we should be having is what the fuck we are going to do about it? As our government has shown, not a damn thing, we'll keep pretending that there is a chance that it doesn't exist so that everyone can sleep a little better at night, and our politicians can keep getting paid by the denier coal, oil and other polluting industries. I bet the coal and oil CEO's probably already got their doomsday bunkers ready, because they know what's happening and they know they are part of what's causing it. They'll burn the environment down and everybody with it, then wait for the sea levels to lower and start all over again not giving a damn as long as they make their money!!

[CFLDem]

39. Alright!

Where's my trophy?