Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Quick Notes

Satellite image of ship tracks, clouds created by the exhaust of ship smokestacks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Graphic illustrating the percentages of public opinions on the likelihood of some scientists falsifying global warming research. Based on Rasmussen polling of 1,000 American adults conducted July 29-30, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Electricity at 2 am (Photo credit: hsld)

Keystone XL demonstration, White House,8-23-2011 Photo Credit: Josh Lopez (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Reckoning with a man made disaster

U.S. is rising into top oil producers

Just How Bad Is the Obamacare Website, Anyway?

I have to add my voice to all those who are sort of agog over the missed chance on this from Republicans. Under normal circumstances, this stuff would be front-page news, with the Obama administration hunkered down and taking hailstorms of flak from all directions. Instead, the shutdown has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and has even provided a built-in excuse for all the website problems. For a party that has dedicated nearly its entire existence to trashing Obamacare, Republicans sure have scored an own goal here.

Rethinking US foreign assistance

How much power does Power Africa need ?

We Heart Power Africa but Will the Interagency Kill It?

Retired NASA Scientists Enter Climate Change Fray

Doiron told StateImpact why he and 20 of his other colleagues decided to get involved in the highly political, highly contentious climate change issue.

“Well, the thing that really pushed me over the edge was the public statements of NASA’s chief climate scientist Dr. James Hansen,” Doiron said. Hansen has been outspoken on climate change, most recently voicing opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline because he said its heavy crude oil could increase greenhouse gases.
Doiron said he looked at the climate models that such fears are based on and felt they couldn’t be believed.
..June 2007

Global Warming: Truth or Dare?

.....determining an average of a quantity (Earth surface temperature) that is everywhere different and continuously changing with time at every point, using measurements at discrete times and places (weather stations), is virtually impossible; in that the resulting number is highly sensitive to the chosen extrapolation method(s) needed to calculate (or rather approximate) the average.

Dec 5 2012

Forecasting Denial: Why Are TV Weathercasters Ignoring Climate Change?

25 Sept 2013

There are huge pressures on the energy industry already. Freezing bills could put Britain in the dark

But we didn’t talk about the costs and how we would pay for it.

On letters from climate change deniers
I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying "there's no sign humans have caused climate change" is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.

Andrew Kerber at 12:43 PM October 9, 2013 Hmm I have no idea where the author's ideas are coming from. No rational person denies humans have caused some climate change. Humans grazing animals have caused deserts to increase in size, cities create local climate with higher temperatures than the surrounding rural area, just to name two. However, the idea that human beings are causing sufficient climate change to cause serious damage to the Earth, and to require drastic, hugely expensive steps to stop it is ridiculous. And unsupported by any scientific evidence. Even the IPCC report makes claims, but doesn't actually support them with any scientific evidence. And if it is this view, that we don't need to panic, that he is refusing to publish, what he is really showing is scientific ignorance and a denial of basic scientific facts.