No Need to Rearrange the Deck Chairs--the Iceberg's Melting.

Previous estimates of the effects of global climate change include the melting of the ice pack on Greenland as a "worst-case" scenario.  Guess what?  The climate models underestimate the rate at which the pack-ice is melting, and also the amount of carbon that melting permafrost will inject into the atmosphere.  Greenland is losing 52 cubic miles of ice each year, and the permafrost emits three to six times as much greenhouse gas as the entire U.S. car and light truck fleet.  Meanwhile, the G8 and the United States Congress fiddle while the planet burns.

The Man Who Wouldn't Be President

Al keeps saying he's not in the race. It's our loss. A fellow who doesn't want to play politics and who actually believes in science is just what we need. Seems like there ought to be some way to force the guy to run--some sort of mandatory presidential draft?

Do People in Arkansas Lack a Sense of Humor?

This letter was sent to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as a joke. In the letter, Connie Meskimen, a Little Rock attorney, blames global warming on Congress because they started Daylight Savings Time a month early, thus allowing extra time for the earth to heat up. The Demozette published it without comment. Apparently some folks in Arkansas don't get the joke. One of my colleagues read the letter to his class as an example of how scientifically illiterate some people are. Perhaps it's a better example of how humorless people can be.

Although, with some of the garbage spouted by global warming deniers and creationists, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised that people take this kind of thing seriously. After all, some people believe that irreducible complexity is a scientific argument.

Ho Hum...Global Warming to Wipe Out a Third of the Earth's Species

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Friday released another in its series of reports documenting how global warming is already affecting the climate of the earth and how it is likely to cause extinction of up to a third of all species of plants and animals. Even after being watered down by the governments of the United States, China (the two largest greenhouse gas emitters), and Saudi Arabia (the world's largest oil producer), the report paints a stark picture of the future, especially for the world's poorest people. After a short-lived rise in the production of food in the world, crop yields will plummet. Water supplies in Africa will dwindle, floods, droughts and disease will skyrocket in Asia, and people living in hurricane zones will notice an increase in storms and flooding. Polar bears, amphibians, and coral reefs will disappear.

Big deal. You'd think this would be front page news, but the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette deems it unworthy, and places it on page 2, behind a story about the failure of the Little Rock school board to fire the superindent of the district (a fellow who happens to be a chum of Demozette publisher Walter Hussman). Not too surprising--the Democrat-Gazette is a well-known right-wing rag; they gave the front page of last Sunday's editorial section over to the moronic global warming denial screed mentioned in the post just below this one. What about the so-called liberal media? On the morning after the report was released, CNN.com relegated the story to the bottom of their front page, but they managed to find room at the top of the page for a story about a 102-year-old who shot a hole-in-one. MSnbc.com is somewhat better, with an inconspicuous link to their coverage placed on the front page (I actually missed it the first time I looked). They apparently think that a story on the Chinese divorce rate is more important or more interesting--hard to say which. The New York Times web site buries the story far down the page, below an important report on the disposition of leftover statues of Saddam Hussein. (In fairness, the CNN and MSnbc sites gave the story a bit more play late yesterday--I didn't look at the Times web site until this morning--and that's the part of the point. This is too big a story to let it be buried by a lack of hits.)

I know people are suffering from "Global Warming Fatigue." I know the deniers have done an admirable job of painting Al Gore and global warming scientists as shrill loonies who are somehow using the fear of climate change as a way to make a buck. But news organizations have a responsibility to report news in a such a way that the most important, far-reaching news is prominent and easily accessible. If they can give us all the Anna Nicole coverage we so desperately crave, they can also leave vital stories on page one for longer than a couple of hours.

Old Lies About Global Warming Repackaged

Today’s Arkansas-Democrat Gazette contains an opinion column from Jonathan Last again suggesting that global climate change is not settled science and that Al Gore has exaggerated claims of the damage that climate change will cause. He quotes the recent New York Times article that drags up criticisms of Gore. The NYT article, which says that a few--a few--climate scientists think that some of Gore’s claims might be somewhat overstated is pretty nicely debunked here. He drags up the old claim that a study by the Max Planck Institute blames global warming on an increase in solar energy—an idea which the authors specifically refute within their study. (Click here for details.) He then quotes a couple of fringe authors to attempt to link global warming scientists with UFO-chasing nutjobs. Mighty fine “journalism,” if you ask me—much like the rest of those who argue with global climate change science, Last simply repeats old lies and half-truths, and restates tired attacks on Al Gore, without any new information.

Note, please, that Jonathan Last is not a scientist, or even a science writer. He is an ultraconservative opinion writer and on-line editor of the Weekly Standard, the neocon rag which recently ran an article claiming that there was money to be made in the “Global Warming Industrial Complex,” apparently without a hint of ironic intent. Last also writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the dying daily paper recently placed under the charge of Republican activist Brian Tierney. Recent "scientific" columns by Last include attacks on the abilities of American actors and an anti-aborition screed. This is another example of why it is important that people interested in the truth surrounding scientific issues don’t get their information from pundits and columnists. Instead, if you want to know what scientists have found, and what they think, ask the scientists.