Network News Notices Climate Change:

The three major Sunday morning network television shows all featured conversations about climate change on Sunday. Now that’s news. Throughout all of last year, the same programs and Fox News Sunday devoted only 27 minutes – combined – to global warming. Up from just 8 minutes the year before. This Sunday on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos discussed how to "get ahead" of climate change with Dr. Heidi Cullen, Climate Central's chief climatologist. The CBS program Face the Nation featured an interview with Dr. Marshall Shepherd, the former head of the American Meteorological Society. And on NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory and scientist Bill Nye countered claims by Rep. Marsha Blackburn that there is no consensus that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming. "But there is consensus," Gregory interjected. "Within the scientific community, there is consensus."

Continue reading here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/news-notices-climate-change

“Meet the Press” to host climate change “debate” between GOP’s Marsha Blackburn and Bill Nye “the Science Guy” - Salon.com

Global Warming, Winter Weather and the Olympics - Five Leading Climate Scientists Weigh in - NYTimes.com

There’s a noteworthy letter in today’s edition of the journal Science, titled “Global Warming and This Winter’s Cold Weather,” that aims to cut through the flood of overwrought assertions about recent Northern Hemisphere winter weather in the context of global warming.

It’s written by five leading climate scientists, all of whom have long been reliable guides to a complicated and consequential body of science — John M. Wallace at the University of Washington, Isaac M. Held at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, David W. J. Thompson at Colorado State University, Kevin E. Trenberth at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and John E. Walsh at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

The letter is behind the journal’s subscription wall, so I’m providing excerpts here: (...)

 RichardPrins wrote: 

No, not hardly.  And no red fishes.  The global economic woes are due to criminal banking more than anything else in my estimation.  The US .gov has definitely set back our economy and hurt our liberties to an extent by pushing green down our throat and subsidizing losing enterprises.  R&D is one thing, but subsidizing businesses that have no economically viable niche is crazy.  There was R&D to help develop fracking tech, but none of the businesses involved presently are receiving any susbsidies.

If the number one cause of Global Climate change is man, then it most certainly is primarily an economic issue.  This is the assertion and since any influences from Nature itself are totally discounted, then if not, what else could it be from ?  Since Climate Change is manmade, then it must be discussed primarily as an economic issue of balance.

Yes, pollution has been exported by domestic regulation of business, with alot of help from NIMBY.  There are two other things that decide where business sets up shop.  Cheap labor is one and the other is cheap energy.  The US had cheap energy to offset its higher labor cost, but that benefit has sinced slipped away. 

Since climate change is such a crisis, the best thing we can do is immediately restrict the use of the number one polluting energy source, coal.  We must immediately stop the international trafficking of coal for the good of the world.  Since this is a crisis, it requires drastic action and everyone will have to sacrifice.  The US has already made its share of sacrifices and is shutting down its coal power generating plants with financial hardships borne by us citizens.  The US has even shut down its last domestic lead smelter.  So we can expect the same of others.  Its time to stop saying that because we have done it in the past its justification to let other lessor developed nations use that as an excuse to pollute.

How do we deal with this crisis ?  It is a crisis, isn't it ?  And man is the only cause of this climate change crisis, we are told by the experts.  So do we (TW) lower our standard of living to that of the rest of the world or raise everyone else up ?

 kurtster wrote: 
It was sort of central to wanting to call yourself a skeptic (and trying to link yourself to other 'noble' skeptics). I still think 'deniers' is a more accurate and appropriate label. Denying science in favour of ideology (there are some good examples of that, with which I'm pretty sure you're all too familiar).

The rest of your post was mainly about economics, for which there is actually a better existing thread (Economix). However, I do understand that economics is the basis for a lot of denial, while, ironically perhaps, it is also the basis for climate change (through pollution, i.e. CO₂, though not exclusively). So, I wasn't really going to follow your red herring to globalization and China/India (or BRIC), but will point out that they (developing economies) are doing what "The West" (TW) has been doing since the Industrial Revolution. In fact, those developing countries have been doing that, to some extent, for the needs of TW as well as for their own balance sheets. The TW takes advantage of their laxer regulations (environmental, worker's rights/costs) as to keep their own healthy profit margins. In short (and short-sightedness), the search for cheap(est) labour/production (regardless of negative externalities). Of course, by shifting some of the production and jobs, the polluting sources also gets moved. An overall drop in productivity (following for instance an economic crash) also reduces the amount of pollution considerably, as does some regulation on emissions (which can also be competitive, for instance in car production).

You really believe the current economic woes (that are also of a global nature) have been caused by your government's policy on climate change, as opposed to something like increased economic financialization and globalization?

 RichardPrins wrote:
Who cares ?

Nothing to say about the rest of my post ?
 

Church of England vows to fight 'great demon' of climate change
General Synod says it is willing to disinvest from companies that do not live up to its theological, moral and social priorities

(as a last resort)
 
Denialist Myth No. 6: Models are unreliable

Report: 95 percent of global warming models are wrong

 kurtster wrote:
Issues such as? And championed by whom?

 RichardPrins wrote:
In almost every other social or political issue, the skeptics are the ones who are championed.  But not the skeptics of man made climate change.  It is the opposite.

The US has done its part to date.  Probably more so than any other industrialized nation.  We have already reduced our noxious emission to pre 1990 levels, already exceding those set forth in the Kyoto dealio.  The rest of the world is lagging behind and not pulling its weight.

The US has crippled its economy and trampled individual rights in this quest.  I've had enough.  I believe in science as a whole.  But I am skeptical of who is leading this rush to judgement.  Everything that the US is doing is being nullified by other nations who are making no effort whatsoever to reduce their own emmissions.  Carbon credits does not do a damn thing in reducing the emissions, it merely transfers wealth to those who are doing nothing while handsomely rewarding the middlemen running the scheme.

On this matter the US has exceeded its responsibility to the rest of the world.  It is in everyone's best interest to reduce pollution and the US has long ago evolved in the right direction and will continue regardless of politics because in the end, it makes sense and is the right thing to do.  But I will no longer accept the diagnosis that we are the heavy and need to do more than we already are.

I refuse to support and subsidize countries like China and India for example who turn a blind eye to this issue, by trying to reduce our own emissions further to make up for their refusals.  This is nucking futz.

I'll add one more to the debate.  If the US green movement was really serious it would lead the cause to ban exports of US coal to the rest of the world because it is one of the largest sources of offending pollutants.  If we can't use it here, no one can.  The rest of the world will have to find a way to adapt.  It will drive up energy costs globally making market forces to further develop alt sources more feasable and self supporting.  We already have a ban on exporting domesticly produced oil, yet there are some who wish to change that. 

We need to stop exporting coal and force the world to improve for its own good.  This step alone will help reduce carbon emissions globally more effectively than any carbon credit would, without costing the US taxpayer anything extra.

Study Sounds 'El Niño Alarm' For Late This Year | Climate Central

A new study shows that there is at least a 76 percent likelihood that an El Niño event will occur later this year, potentially reshaping global weather patterns for a year or more and raising the odds that 2015 will set a record for the warmest year since instrument records began in the late 19th century.

The study, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on research put forward in 2013 that first proposed a new long-range El Niño prediction method. (...)

Pro-green Tories challenge party's climate change sceptics
Manifesto from Tory 2020 group highlights plans to create 300,000 jobs by pursuing environmentally friendly policies

A group of modernising pro-green Tories will today launch a fight-back within the party when they publish a manifesto outlining plans for a £5bn-a-year boost in economic growth, creating 300,000 jobs, by pursuing environmentally friendly policies.

In a sign of their determination to challenge Tory climate-change sceptics after a leading minister said that David Cameron was getting rid of "green crap", the modernisers will say that the most successful economies of the future will embrace both the environment and competitiveness.

The publication of the manifesto by the 2020 group of Tory MPs came after the former Conservative environment secretary Lord Deben launched an offensive on climate-change sceptics.

In a series of tweets Deben – the father of green Tories in his days, and formerly known as John Gummer – said he hoped the sceptics would stop insulting pro-green campaigners and accept that they were denying science.

Echoing comments by the Prince of Wales, who depicted climate-change deniers as the "headless chicken brigade", Deben tweeted: "If we accept advice of 95% of scientists & they're wrong, we've cleaned atmosphere. If we deny them & they're right, we've buggered the planet."

The 2020 group of modernisers, many of whom feel as strongly as Deben about climate change, have cast their arguments in purely economic terms and have been careful not to use the words "green" or "sustainable" in their manifesto.

This is a deliberate tactic hammered out at a private meeting with Cameron following his alleged "green crap" comments to try to win over George Osborne – who put the brakes on the "Vote Blue, Go Green" approach when he said in his speech to the 2011 Tory conference that Britain would go "no slower but also no faster" than any other EU country in carbon emission cuts.

The 2020 group's biggest proposal is to boost profits for manufacturers by £5bn a year, creating 300,000 jobs, by tightening the rules on waste products. The group proposes that laws banning valuable products, including mobiles phones, from being put in landfill, be extended to cover plastics, wood, textiles and food. (...)

The weather report
Economists are getting to grips with the impact of climate change

 RichardPrins wrote: 
No it doesn't deal with climate change.  It does deal with weather and how weather affects the ocean surface and generates waves among other aspects.  The principles are what they are and rising or changing sea levels has no effect on how waves and currents interact with the shoreline.  Erosion will happen at the edge regardles of where the edge is.  Among the many things you would see if the book were still in print is how man's interaction at the shoreline, with jetties, breakwalls and other artificial constructs is only temporary, and drastically and immediately alters the shoreline downstream of the local coastal currents.

It helped me to understand how powerful (and as an organized system) the ocean is and put into perspective man's relationship with its power.  Man is no match and all attempts to interfere with its power is futile and in the end, a great waste of time and money in attemping to alter the inevitable.  Same with trying to alter the weather / climate.  The Sahara was once a lush forest.

Make no mistake, I do recognize that our climate is changing.  I just disagree with why and what to do about it.  We should be spending our precious limited resources on embracing the new weather and finding ways to adapt to it.  Not fight it and attempt to change it.  Resistance is futile.

Thanks for taking the time to actually look up the book.  Its a real shame its out of print, especially now.  It was well done and written in a way that was easy to understand the physics and dynamics it was trying to illustrate and explain.

 kurtster wrote: 
Despite being 50 years old (published in '64), I'm sure it is an interesting and useful book (and probably correct) w.r.t. the processes and mechanics that take place involving the ocean's surface and (its effects on) beaches, which include erosion.

However, it can't (and likely doesn't) explain climate change, or all of the other factors involved in it (atmosphere, land masses, the poles, etc.). What you are trying to infer from the contents of the book, while ignoring loads of other material, is of course another matter entirely.

It did get consistently great reviews on Amazon, especially from lovers of beaches and surfers, but it currently seems to be out of print with only a second edition (updated and revised) published in 1980.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
You're such an avid reader, so with that in mind read this book,
which I did some 45 years ago and you will find the answers that I refer to.

With this being such a hot topic right now, this book is vital to
anyone who is concerned about coastal erosion.

I have had 45 years of life to find that the information 
in this book is both useful and correct to this day.
Its one of the most important books that I have ever read and it still serves me well to this day.

If your concern is real, read it and get back to me.  I put this up against your 'expert' references.

Debunk this ...

.

 kurtster wrote: 
You have attempted that several times already, and it ended up being bunkum put forward by cranks.

It still easily beats fear-mongering through irrational, fact-free conspiracy theories putting forward motives of either the left or the UN trying to grab our money and/or enslave us.

Carry on the denial, you know you want/have to.

 RichardPrins wrote: 

From your article ...

 We struggle to accept a new landscape forged by forces utterly beyond our control.

I could attempt to describe these forces and how they work and why they have nothing to do with Global Warming, but why ?

Be afraid and inspire fear in others ... Carry one.

Governments and their Cobra committees may excel at crisis management, but politicians are hopeless at taking wise decisions over geological time, even when natural erosion is quickened by climate change. All around our coast, scenarios drawn up for 2044 have materialised this winter. "Everybody thought this would hit us in 20 or 30 years time, but it's come now," says Lohoar

Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly effect the evaporation from the earth, and of course the mean quantity of moisture suspended in the air. The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may effect vegetation. The mean temperature of London is a degree or two higher than that of the surrounding country, and Pallas believed, that the climate of even so thinly a peopled country as Russia was sensibly modified by similar causes.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
That's nice.  I'm willing to bet that this rise measured in joules has more to do with the changing chemistry and rise in particulate matter (read pollution)  that holds the heat more.  Joules would be measuring potential energy of the water.  I'd be more interested in seeing the data in degrees. and the changes by depth and location.

Coastal waters along the east and west coast are little changed over the decades.  The Gulf of Mexico however has been heating up more so lately say 5 degrees more in the summer months.  But it is a smaller body of water.  Also the path of the Gulf Stream has shifted somewhat to the south after leaving the east coast of the US with fluctuating amounts of heat, which in turn explains much of Europe's more volatile and colder winters.  This is a trend that started some 20 years ago IIRC.

It's still about the boy and the girl more than anything else having to do with the relationship of the oceans to weather patterns.

But what do I know ?  I live in Ohio far away from the oceans, so how much can I really know about them ...

Heck I'm still laughing about the global warming expedition to Antactica to observe the reduced amount of ice that got trapped in the ice that wasn't supposed to be there.  Too much, a bunch of weather experts thinking its gotten warm down there.