ESPN’s The Undefeated Warns Against Ignoring Climate Change ‘Facts’
What do we do if we are increasingly willing to ignore “facts?” According to Jeff Rivers, “we’ll end up in real trouble.” Writing for ESPN’s The Undefeated blog, Rivers writes that when it comes to public policy “we too often allow ideology and political maneuvering to render facts moot, especially when those facts support inconvenient truths such as global climate change.”
Rivers is starting from a leftist’s predisposition and imposing his worldview on others as so-called “facts.”
Though he tries to come across as a reasonable man of the middle, it’s clear Rivers is in league with the left-stream media and the policy preferences of Barack Obama and the Democrats. Their views on climate, energy and other topics are based on agenda-driven ideology and not on science. Claims of shrinking polar caps, declining polar bear populations and others are myths masquerading as facts, themselves “political maneuvering.”
Rivers continues: “And morality, if it is acknowledged at all, is presumed to be the province of specific parties or ideologies, instead of governing our thinking, decisions and actions. From public education to health care, we focus more on the politics of changing public policy than the efficacy and morality of making the changes.”…
Morano featured in The Hill on Trump nominees dodging ‘climate denier’ charge – ‘You sort of just laugh at how gullible the media is’
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/315385-trump-nominees-dodge-climate-denier-charge
The climate skeptic community, meanwhile, isn’t bothered by the new tune coming from the executive branch.
Marc Morano, publisher of the skeptical news site Climate Depot and a former aide to outspoken skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), said that the Trump team’s statements on climate are easily defendable.
“This is a semantic game that Trump’s Cabinet officials are playing,” Morano said. “Obviously, if you say you believe in climate change, it’s a meaningless statement.”
Morano said it’s not controversial that the climate is changing and that humans influence it. But skeptics reject the idea that humans are the main cause, or that any policy change can control global warming.
“The media is so easy to fall for misdirections on this issue, and the Trump nominees have mastered that this week,” he said. “You sort of just laugh at how gullible the media is.”
Morano said he was slightly disappointed that Trump’s picks weren’t “defiant skeptics going into battle to fight,” and didn’t push back forcefully at Democrats.
But overall, the hearings did not dampen his excitement for Trump’s presidency, he said.…
Load of bollocks: 2016 allegedly ‘hottest year’ by unmeasureable 1/100 of a degree – While satellites show ‘pause’ continues
Climate Depot Analysis
It’s that time of year again, the annual media ritual of declaring the previous year “the hottest ever!” And as usual, the media and many activists government scientists are playing fast and loose with the temperature data and.
Former Vice President Al Gore promoted the “hottest year” claim today. “2016 was the hottest year on record — confirmed by NASA and NOAA,” Gore tweeted. (More media hype here: CNN: 2016 was the hottest year on record — again & 2016 breaks record for hottest year ever)
But scientists seemed to yawn at the news.
Extreme Weather expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. noted that the media “hottest year” scare stories are simply not working. “Selling climate policy on “hottest year ever” hard because 2016 also had very low disasters & record high crop productivity. It doesn’t scare people,” Pielke wrote.
MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen, was very blunt. (See: MIT climate scientist on ‘hottest year’: ‘The hysteria over this issue is truly bizarre’ – Warns of return ‘back to the dark ages’)
Lindzen said in an interview on Howie Carr’s radio show: “To imply that a rise of temperature of a tenth of a degree is proof that the world is coming to an end — has to take one back to the dark ages.” He added, “As long as you can get people excited as to whether it’s a tenth of a degree warmer or cooler, then you don’t have to think, you can assume everyone who is listening to you is an idiot.”
“The whole point is so crazy because the temperature is always going up or down a little. What is astonishing is that in the last 20 years it hasn’t done much of anything,” Lindzen continued.
“What they don’t mention is there has been a big El Nino in 2016 and in recent months the temperature has been dropping back into a zero trend level,” he added.
Hottest year claims? Media Ignores The Satellite Record Showing No Warming Since 1998
By Paul Homewood
There must be something wrong with my old eyes, as I can’t seem to find any mention of the satellite record, which shows no such thing.
To recap, both UAH and RSS say that atmospheric temperatures for 2016 statistically tied with 1998, at just 0.02C higher.
Neither 2014 or 2015 were anywhere near being a record.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/
Satellite measurements of global temperatures are regarded as much more comprehensive, accurate and unaffected by UHI, as Roy Spencer explained in 2014.
The BBC shows the map provided by NOAA, with lots of red on it to convince us how hot it has been.
However, if they were more honest, they might have showed the Land-Only map, which underlines the fact that most of the world’s land mass has no thermometer coverage at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38652746
Of course, there might be good reasons why the satellite record has diverged from the surface data in recent years, but is it not the job of the BBC to provide us with all the facts, and not just the ones that suit its political agenda?
…NPR: Ice Shelf Is Cracking In Antarctica- But ‘it’s probably just simply a natural event…not directly attributable to any warming’
But this is not just another sad climate change story. It’s more complicated.
“A lot of things are going on deep inside the ice,” says Adrian Luckman, a glaciologist at Swansea University in the U.K. He’s also leading a project to track changes in the ice shelf.
Luckman says climate change is certainly influencing this region. Larsen C used to have two neighbors to the north, Larsen A and Larsen B. As the air and water warmed, those ice shelves started melting and then splintered into shards in 1995 and 2002.
But the crack in Larsen C seems to have happened on its own, for different reasons.
“This is probably not directly attributable to any warming in the region, although of course the warming won’t have helped,” says Luckman. “It’s probably just simply a natural event that’s just been waiting around to happen.”
…
Zoologist calls U.S. polar bear survival plan ‘fake news’ as animals thrive
…Polar bear conservation group blasts Obama for climate alarmism: ‘Sensationalized nonsense’
The Obama administration warned Monday that polar bears may disappear unless something is done about climate change, despite recent research indicating that the bears are actually thriving.
In its final Conservation Management Plan, the Fish and Wildlife Service painted a grim picture for the future of the massive Arctic-dwelling mammal, warning that its fate will be determined “by our willingness and ability to address climate change.”
“The current global polar bear population is estimated to be 26,000,” said the FWS press release. “If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at the current rates throughout the 21st century, polar bears will likely disappear from much of their present-day range.”
The announcement prompted pushback from zoologist Susan J. Crockford, founder of the Polar Bear Science website, who blasted the service for igniting a rash of “sensationalized nonsense” by fueling alarmist media reports.
Since 2007, “summer sea ice coverage has declined to levels their sea ice colleagues said would not occur until 2050 yet 2/3 of the world’s polar bears did not disappear as [U.S. Geological Service] biologists predicted,” Ms. Crockford said in a post.
The polar bear was listed as threatened in 2008 as a result of declining Arctic sea ice, but its population has proved remarkably resilient, although the Fish and Wildlife Service plan doesn’t mention that, she said.
“They also don’t tell folks that the recent decline in population size recorded for the Southern Beaufort Sea was caused by thick spring sea ice in 2004-2006, not reduced summer sea ice,” said Ms. Crockford, an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature pegs the polar bear population at between 22,000 and 31,000, which she called “the highest estimate in 50 years.”
Recent studies have shown increases in some of the 19 Arctic polar-bear populations. In 2013, the FWS reported the Chukchi Sea population in Alaska was doing “quite well,” while the Norwegian Polar Institute found in 2015 that the Barents Sea polar bears had risen by 42 percent since 2004.
Meanwhile, wildlife groups criticized the federal plan for failing to mandate large-scale U.S. reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions in order to combat climate change.
“Polar bears are starving and drowning as their sea ice melts away, but this toothless plan shrugs off the one solution that will
Polar Bear Expert: ‘Fake news on polar bear survival predictions is political posturing’
I call this fake news because it’s not news – media headlines around the world today (New York Times, Washington Post, DailyMail) are trumpeting the release of a final version of a draft report released with similar fanfare more than a year ago, announced today by the US Fish & Wildlife Service in the official US government publication, Federal Register.
“Without action on climate change, say goodbye to polar bears” is exactly the kind of sensationalized nonsense I address in my new detailed science book, Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change (announced here, discussed here).
What the USFWS don’t tell the citizens that pay their salaries (in their Conservation Management Plan or their discussions with the press), is that since 2007 (see images above), summer sea ice coverage has declined to levels their sea ice colleagues said would not occur until 2050 yet 2/3 of the world’s polar bears did not disappear as USGS biolgists predicted (which is what got the bears listed as ‘threatened’ under the ESA). They also don’t tell folks that the recent decline in population size recorded for the Southern Beaufort Sea was caused by thick spring sea ice in 2004-2006, not reduced summer sea ice.
Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that this old hype is being recycled as ‘news’ prior to the inauguration of President-elect Trump? I surmise this based on the New York Times take, which includes this passage:
“Mr. Trump has signaled his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement — an accord the wildlife agency lauded in its report as a positive step toward ensuring the continued existence of polar bears — and he has shown little interest in making emissions reduction a priority. Nor is the price tag that accompanies the recovery plan for the polar bear, about $13 million a year, likely to be greeted with enthusiasm by a Republican-dominated Congress that includes members with no great love for the Endangered Species Act.”
If there is much of substance in this document (pdf here) that differs from the draft (pdf here), it would take a page by page analysis to discover (I discussed an interview with polar bear biologist Mitch Taylor regarding that 2015 draft report here).
However, I see that the Federal Register notice (pg. 2393, pdf here) does quote the …
No Joke! Actual NY Times headline: ‘As Donald Trump Denies Climate Change, These Kids Die of It’
We Americans may be inadvertently killing her infant son. Climate change, disproportionately caused by carbon emissions from America, seems to be behind a severe drought that has led crops to wilt across seven countries in southern Africa. The result is acute malnutrition for 1.3 million children in the region, the United Nations says.
Trump has repeatedly mocked climate change, once even calling it a hoax fabricated by China. But climate change here is as tangible as its victims. Trump should come and feel these children’s ribs and watch them struggle for life. It’s true that the links between our carbon emissions and any particular drought are convoluted, but over all, climate change is as palpable as a wizened, glassy-eyed child dying of starvation. Like Ranomasy’s 18-month-old son, Tsapasoa.
Southern Africa’s drought and food crisis have gone largely unnoticed around the world. The situation has been particularly severe in Madagascar, a lovely island nation known for deserted sandy beaches and playful long-tailed primates called lemurs.
But the southern part of the island doesn’t look anything like the animated movie “Madagascar”: Families are slowly starving because rains and crops have failed for the last few years. They are reduced to eating cactus and even rocks or ashes. The United Nations estimates that nearly one million people in Madagascar alone need emergency food assistance.
…
The immediate cause of the droughts was an extremely warm El Niño event, which came on top of a larger drying trend in the last few decades in parts of Africa. New research, just published in the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, concludes that human-caused climate change exacerbated El Niño’s intensity and significantly reduced rainfall in parts of Ethiopia and southern Africa.
The researchers calculated that human contributions to global warming reduced water runoff in southern Africa by 48 percent and concluded that these human contributions “have contributed to substantial food crises.”
Climate Depot Response:
Unfortunately, the New York Times does not have science on its side. Droughts are not worse during the age of “global warming.” Not only are global droughts not increasing, but the notion that you can attribute them to “global warming” is not valid.
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer in 2016: “Global warming and climate change, even if it is 100% caused by humans, is so slow that it cannot be observed by anyone in their lifetime. Hurricanes, tornadoes, …
Dr. Pielke Jr. mocks new claim: ‘A magic force field’ is now preventing land-falling hurricanes? – Warmists scramble to explain lack of extreme weather
Background:
Roger Pielke Jr. wrote last month in the WSJ, “There is scant evidence to indicate that hurricanes, floods, tornadoes or drought have become more frequent or intense in the U.S. or globally. In fact we are in an era of good fortune when it comes to extreme weather.”
What Global Warming? Chart Shows Damage From Weather Disaster Is Sharply Declining
‘We are on pace for one of the quietest tornadoes years in the last decade and with respect to land falling major hurricanes in the US, an unprecedented streak in the record-keeping era continues through yet another tropical season.’
Also see Climate Depot’s new 44 page consensus busting ‘State of the Climate Report’