Glob Warm 2 Bak
918 bak capt, also 12/18 globalwarm21218 text
INCLUDES POLLING, PUBLIC OPINION, PSYCHOLOGY ETC
http://www.alternet.org/environment/unprecedented-scientists-declare-global-climate-emergency-after-jet-stream-crosses
Climate scientists this week expressed alarm after “unprecedented” data showed the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream crossing the Equator.
In a column on Tuesday, environmental blogger Robert Scribbler noted that the Northern Hemisphere Jet Stream had merged with the Southern Hemisphere Jet Stream.
“It’s the very picture of weather weirding due to climate change. Something that would absolutely not happen in a normal world,” he wrote. “Something, that if it continues, basically threatens seasonal integrity.”
“Like many extreme events resulting from human-forced climate change — this co-mingling of upper level airs from one Hemisphere with another is pretty fracking strange,” Scribbler explained. “Historically, the Tropics — which produce the tallest and thickest air mass in the world — have served as a mostly impenetrable barrier to upper level winds moving from one Hemisphere to another. But as the Poles have warmed due to human-forced climate change, the Hemispherical Jet Streams have moved out of the Middle Latitudes more and more. ”
“That’s bad news for seasonality,” he continued. “You get this weather-destabilizing and extreme weather generating mixing of seasons that is all part of a very difficult to deal with ‘Death of Winter’ type scenario.”
University of Ottawa climate scientist Paul Beckwith called the new behavior “unprecedented.”
“Our climate system behaviour continues to behave in new and scary ways that we have never anticipated, or seen before,” Beckwith observed. “Welcome to climate chaos. We must declare a global climate emergency.”
In a YouTube video, Beckwith said that the jet stream behavior signaled “massive hits to the food supply” and “massive geopolitical unrest.”
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smoking gun on global weirding (see also flood, drought, sea level rise) hurricane
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/11032016/global-warming-climate-change-extreme-weather-drought-attribution-study
A new study shows it's now possible for scientists to confidently measure the influence of climate change on some extreme weather events, such as heat waves.
In this first-ever assessment of the emerging field of climate science attribution, researchers from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine are setting the record straight on how well scientists can currently tease out the climate-change fingerprints of different types of extreme weather.
In 2015, the United States was hit by myriad extreme weather events: record snowfall in the Northeast; flooding in North Carolina, Texas and Oklahoma; an ongoing drought in California. And America wasn't alone. India experienced a heat wave that killed more than 2,300 people, and the strongest ever tropical cyclone was observed in the Pacific Ocean last year.
Following these events, climate scientists were repeatedly asked the same question by politicians, the public, even the media: Was that event caused by climate change?
"In the past, a typical scientist's response to questions about climate change's role in any given weather event was, 'We cannot attribute any single event to climate change,'" scientists on the National Academies' Committee on Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change wrote in a report published Friday. "The science has advanced to the point that this is no longer true as an unqualified statement."
So when does such a noncommittal answer no longer hold up?
According to the report, scientists have the most confidence in their ability to discern climate change impacts on temperature extremes—whether they are warmer than usual, or not as cold as usual. For these two types of weather events, scientists have a lot of historical data, a strong understanding of how climate change influences the physics of them, and climate models that can accurately replicate past events.
This doesn't mean every heat wave should be assumed to be strongly tied to climate change, clarified J. Marshall Shepherd, a study author and climate researcher at the University of Georgia. Nor does it mean climate change is always influencing extreme weather events in the same way, making them stronger or weaker, more frequent or less frequent, Shepherd told InsideClimate News. It just means that scientists now have the tools to figure out how climate change is impacting notable weather events.
This isn't true for all extreme weather. The study explains that researchers have only moderate confidence in their ability to pin down the link for droughts and extreme rainfall; wildfire is another example of an event that is harder to attribute to climate change, since so many human factors may be involved.
And scientists have even less confidence in their ability to conduct such an analysis for snowstorms, tropical cyclones and extratropical cyclones.
Finally, the report clarified that scientists are currently unable to run such studies for isolated thunderstorms because there's too little data and too many questions about their link to climate change.
Climate Change Is Impacting the Weather. Period.
According to Shepherd, it's time to stop asking whether events are caused by climate change.
"We can essentially lay it to rest, put the tombstone on it," Shepherd said during a press conference following the report's release.
Scientists are in agreement that "climate change is impacting the weather,"Martin Hoerling, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told InsideClimate News.
What's more important—and the focus of this study—is figuring out by how much and in what way climate change is influencing these events, Hoerling said. Specifically, whether climate change influences the frequency and/or the intensity of such events.
The study did not assess the climate influence of any particular event, such as the ongoing drought in California, or grade the findings of past attribution studies.
The 163-page report did review the approaches of attribution studies in the past. Those studies relied primarily on historical data, or on climate models, or some combination of the two. The most reliable studies used both observational data and modeling, the study said.
A key goal of this work is to be able to predict extreme weather events,David Titley, chair of the committee that conducted the study, said at the press conference. "If we could predict them and verify them...it's pretty hard to argue these things aren't happening" or that climate change isn't influencing them, said Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State University.
More important, he said, is how extreme weather prediction can be used for risk assessment. "If we can help people understand how those risks are changing and why those risks are changing, that is a very powerful tool in a toolbox" for city managers, emergency planners and company owners, Titley said.
Sheila V Kumar contributed to this report.
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http://grist.org/series/climate-on-the-mind/
[http://grist.org/climate-energy/can-climate-change-cause-wars/ Can climate change cause wars?] 1/16
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[http://www.alternet.org/environment/citi-report-slowing-global-warming-would-save-tens-trillions-dollars](Citi%20Global%20Perspectives%20%26%20Solutions%20%28GPS%29,%20a%20division%20within%20Citbank%20%28America’s%20third-largest%20bank%29,%20recently%20published%20a%20report%20looking%20at%20the%20economic%20costs%20and%20benefits%20of%20a%20low-carbon%20future.%20The%20report%20considered%20two%20scenarios:%20“Inaction,”%20which%20involves%20continuing%20on%20a%20business-as-usual%20path,%20and%20Action%20scenario%20which%20involves%20transitioning%20to%20a%20low-carbon%20energy%20mix.One%20of%20the%20most%20interesting%20findings%20in%20the%20report%20is%20that%20the%20investment%20costs%20for%20the%20two%20scenarios%20are%20almost%20identical.%20In%20fact,%20because%20of%20savings%20due%20to%20reduced%20fuel%20costs%20and%20increased%20energy%20efficiency,%20the%20Action%20scenario%20is%20actually%20a%20bit%20cheaper%20than%20the%20Inaction%20scenario.)
Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS), a division within Citbank (America’s third-largest bank), recently published a report looking at the economic costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report considered two scenarios: “Inaction,” which involves continuing on a business-as-usual path, and Action scenario which involves transitioning to a low-carbon energy mix.
One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario.... 9/15
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Robert Jay Lifton on How Climate Change Joins Nuclear War in Threatening Human Survival
psychology //
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/7/robert_jay_lifton_on_how_climate
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OMG
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/12/9/corporate_conquistadors_new_report_exposes_how
corps profit from agw
report: http://democracyctr.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Corporate_Conquistadors-EN-webFINAL.pdf
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a big deal http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/12/3591284/us-china-climate-deal
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ecowatch
It may surprise you to learn that zero emissions has already been embraced as a goal by business leaders as well-known as Bill Gates, and world leaders as prominent as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria; UN climate chief Christiana Figueres; Prince Charles; and former President Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of The Elders.
Again, even the conservative, consensus-based IPCC supports near zero emissions or below, albeit on a year 2100 timeline that belies the urgency of their August draft report, which warns of “irreversible impacts” from continued emissions.
Major corporations, like Google, have embraced a zero carbon goal. Others like Microsoft and Deutsche Bank are moving in this direction by committing to net zero emissions, or carbon neutrality (using carbon offsets or carbon credits to balance out remaining emissions). 684 college and university presidents (and growing) have taken a similar climate neutrality pledge. And a fossil fuel divestment movement is picking up steam on college campuses (including Stanford University, Sydney University and historically black colleges and universities) and in houses of worship around the world.
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bad news for http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/climate-change-study-hawaii_n_5731956.html
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8/14
WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is here, human-caused and probably already dangerous — and it's increasingly likely that the heating trend could be irreversible, a draft of a new international science report says.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Monday sent governments a final draft of its synthesis report, which combines three earlier, gigantic documents by the Nobel Prize-winning group. There is little in the report that wasn't in the other more-detailed versions, but the language is more stark and the report attempts to connect the different scientific disciplines studying problems caused by the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas....
http://link.huffingtonpost.com/4cb49b68b61807701fa21cad1s3d6.l6d/U_z8kuYQ42OEisBeB72cd
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encouraging poll 7/14
http://ecowatch.com/2014/07/15/congress-global-warming/
duelling polls: james taylor iccc cites[sic]:
Another recent poll conducted by NBC News and theWall Street Journal shows Americans rank global warming dead last among 13 public policy priorities. Just 27 percent said addressing climate change should be a policy priority. A 41 percent plurality said Obama and Congress should wait before addressing climate change.
vs
jun 10 14
Americans are willing to bear the costs of combating climate change, and most are more likely to support a candidate seeking to address the issue.
By an almost two-to-one margin, 62 percent to 33 percent, Americans say they would pay more for energy if it would mean a reduction in pollution from carbon emissions, according to the Bloomberg National Poll.
While Republicans were split, with 46 percent willing to pay more and 49 percent opposed to it, 82 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents say they’d accept higher bills.
“We’re already hitting 110 degrees here,” said Larry McNamed, a 44-year-old independent in Henderson,Nevada. “A lot of people are trying to sweep this under the rug, but we need to do something. It’s only going to get hotter.”...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-10/americans-by-2-to-1-would-pay-more-to-curb-climate-change.html
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Why there is no liberal equivalent to climate change denial | Grist
The center-left wonkosphere has been roiled by a recent debate over whether liberals are really just as intellectually dishonest as conservatives.
In a fascinating treatise launching his new site Vox.com, Ezra Klein drew on academic studies to argue that liberals and conservatives are equally likely to misinterpret evidence when it conflicts with their ideological convictions. In one study, for example, liberals believed that a ban on concealed carry of handguns reduced crime, even if the data they were shown said it didn’t, and conservatives believed such a ban did not reduce crime even if the data said it did. “People weren’t reasoning to get the right answer,” Klein writes. “They were reasoning to get the answer that they wanted to be right.”
In explaining why people are so averse to accepting an inconvenient truth, Klein gives the illustrative example of conservative climate change denial. Just think of the professional cost to a right-wing pundit like Fox News’ Sean Hannity if he were to decide he believed in anthropogenic global warming, Klein suggests.
But it is telling that Klein does not use an example of a liberal MSNBC host who cannot face a scientific fact because it contradicts a widely held view among liberals. In a test lab, conservatives and liberals might be equally likely to deny objective reality. But out in the real world, there is no left-wing equivalent to the widespread conservative rejection of scientific consensus on evolution or human-caused climate change. According to a Pew poll from 2013, Republicans are evenly split on whether the climate is changing, and just 23 percent of them agree with the 97 percent of climate scientists who say that climate change is being caused by human activity. As New York Timescolumnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman argues in response to Klein, in the real world conservatives overwhelmingly deny certain facts in a way that liberals don’t.
Klein gave Krugman a thoughtful response suggesting that the party out of power tends to have more incentive to act silly. “They have the luxury of being irresponsible,” Klein writes. “They can posture against the debt ceiling and complain about the deficit and swear they have a better way to reform health care that they’re just not ready to reveal.” George W. Bush believed in climate change, Klein notes, even if he did nothing about it.
But even during the Bush era, Republicans were much less likely to accept the facts about climate change than Democrats were. And in 2007, during Bush’s second term, three Republican presidential candidates, including ultimate second-place finisher Mike Huckabee
they didn’t believe in evolution.
I would like to offer my own theory as to why there is no liberal equivalent to climate change denialism, drawing heavily on the observations of New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait.Liberals and conservatives, as Chait explains, are not mirror images of one another. Conservatives are committed to smaller government always and in principle. Liberals are not committed to bigger government per se. They are committed to outcomes that enhance social welfare. The left-wing equivalent to American conservatives is not liberals; it’s socialists, who prefer government to private ownership of the means of production.
Liberals only support government action when it works better than the private sector. That’s why liberals look at evidence, and are willing to adjust their policy prescriptions. Back in the 1950s, the highest marginal tax rate was 91 percent. No mainstream liberal endorses such a high rate now. Instead, they quibble over what rate would maximize revenue, and answers from liberal economists fall in the range of 40 to 70 percent. In other words, they have accepted that less government — but not too much less — will achieve the best results.
Dealing with pollution is another example. Liberals are glad to accept market-based approaches to curbing emissions, like cap-and-trade, because they’ve been shown to be effective. Meanwhile, Republicans, who first came up with the cap-and-trade approach, have abandoned it now that their party has veered further to the right — moving from a preference for efficient market-oriented solutions to no solutions at all.
Today’s conservatives have no reason to approach evidence with an open mind. They already know that the answer they want is no government regulation. So they work backward from their conclusion and look for an interpretation of the data that will lead to their desired result.
http://grist.org/politics/why-there-is-no-liberal-equivalent-to-climate-change-denial/
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http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131230/outrage-over-climate-inaction-reaches-fever-pitch-2013
...
MORE: Climate Change Science Poised to Enter Nation's Classrooms
Acceptance of climate change grew on both sides of the voting ballot in 2013, as people connected the dots between extreme weather events such as Sandy and record-breaking wildfires and global warming. According to an October poll by the Pew Research Center, half of Republicans, 62 percent of independents and 88 percent of Democrats say there is solid evidence of climate change. In comparison, only 35 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents, and 75 percent of Democrats believed that four years ago.
links to
...nstance, when Republican Rep. Michael Grimm was campaigning in 2010, he told a room full of voters that "the jury is obviously still out on [climate change]. We see nothing but conflicting reports from across the globe." In October, Grimm's Staten Island district was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, a storm that scientists agree was made worse by climate change. But he has stayed mum on the issue since Sandy hit. In the last Congress, Grimm voted against every climate-related bill on votes he was present for on the House floor.
Republican Scott Tipton of Western Colorado represents a region hard hit last year by wildfires, drought and high temperatures. He maintains that climate change is caused by natural variability, not human activities. "Here in the state of Colorado as our tree rings demonstrate, we've had droughts long before there were very many people here," Tipton told the blog ThinkProgress last year.
Alaskan Rep. Don Young, one of the House's most senior Republicans, has called global warming "the biggest scam since the Teapot Dome," referring to one of the most notorious bribery scandals in U.S. history. Young's state has warmed at twice the national average during the past 50 years. According to scientists, the permafrost underlying Alaska is melting and causing thousands of miles of road that lay on top of it to buckle and crack as it loses its form. Sections along the northwestern coast are eroding tens of feet per year, which has forced several coastal villages to be relocated. Melting glaciers are also causing dangerous flood surges toward major cities like Juneau, the New York Times reported this month.
Neither Grimm, Tipton nor Young responded to requests for comment.
Scientists say that climate change is a major factor in the rise of more frequent and severe extreme weather. The trend will continue, they say, until governments make drastic greenhouse gas reductions.
Currently, the United States is in the midst of its most extensive drought since the 1930s. Tens of thousands of wildfires have charred millions of acres of land in the American West, and more than 30,000 temperature records were broken last year alone.
According to a new report by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), one of Congress's staunchest proponents of climate policy, the 10 congressional districts that experienced the highest number of temperature records last year are represented by politicians who voted against climate-related policies 97 percent of the time during the last Congress.
A Different Response
For Democrats, extreme weather events in their districts have prompted calls to action.
Months after taking office in 2009, Alaskan Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat, took a handful of senators on a tour of Alaska to show them the damage being caused by global warming.
"Alaska is ground zero for climate change," Begich told InsideClimate News. "While some would rather debate the causes of climate change, I am focused on dealing with the very real impacts we see every day."
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, five senators from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut wrote a letter asking President Obama to make climate change a priority, saying the superstorm that hit the region last October "brought home the increasing costs of global warming for millions of Americans."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said last month that climate change is causing his state's disastrous wildfire season. "The West is being devastated by wildfires. Millions of acres are burning. Millions of acres have burned," he told reporters. "Why? Because the climate has changed. The winters are shorter; the summers are hotter; the moisture patterns have changed."
During the August congressional recess, several Democratic politicians will try to build support for climate action by holding events in their districts to show people how their communities will be affected as the world warms.
Why So Skeptical?
The general public is already connecting the dots between weather extremes and global warming.
According to a 2013 poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 69 percent of Americans believe that climate change is affecting U.S. weather. As many as 72 percent believe global warming is making extreme weather events even worse....
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0797-1/fulltext.html
Climatic ChangeAn Interdisciplinary, International Journal Devoted to the Description, Causes and Implications of Climatic Change© The Author(s) 201310.1007/s10584-013-0797-1
Essay
Rethinking US climate advocacy
Amy Luers1