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Galileo and the Fireflies by NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen describes both hope and despair from the Netherlands in the climate fight.
The bad news is the fossil fuel industry is spreading misinformation there just as well as here.
They use the approach that pretending that the science is like a talk-show debate, giving equal weight to all opinions and “beliefs”, encouraging the public to misinterpret the skepticism that is inherent in good science, allowing even informed scientists to exhibit their proclivity to extensively cover their fannies with waffling and caveats — is designed by well-oiled coal-fired people who wish to demean science and redefine the matter as a public debate…Putting climate science in a public stock for pillorying is not much different than the treatment that the Church gave to Galileo in disrespecting his science. While Galileo could cross his fingers and meekly accept his punishment, that is not an option available to us — continued ignorance is exactly what the greedy fossil kingpins crave of the public. If we allow the public to be hoodwinked, we sacrifice the future of our children and grandchildren.
The good news is that individuals are not waiting for governments and have developed the solar powered solar lamp also capable of recharging cell phones to replace kerosene lamps among those without electricity. This will have a good effect on both poor people and climate change. They are called WakaWakas and more information can be found here.
Sadly, governments and the United Nations have pretty thoroughly dropped the ball in this matter and the next step will have to be by individuals. It must include both individual action and forcing government action. Neither by itself will be sufficient.
Photo by tom.arthur under Creative Commons license
12 Comments
I lika da Waka Waka. One year for Christmas I bought everyone on my list who had a cell phone (almost all) a little crank-powered flashlight that had adapters for cell charging.
Waka waka!
In an emergency the cell chargers might be more useful than the flashlight! In third world situations, cell phones can jump start a technology. Thanks Wendy!
And 2012 was the warmest year ever for the United States …by a lot… and the second most “extreme”, just like climate models predict over and over. No doubt there will be a science denier who lurks around here along any minute to tell us how the vast conspiracy of global warming “catastrophism” extends to record keepers and weather instrument manufacturers.
It’s scary
what a wonderful idea!
A good friend gave me a crank flashlight AND a crank radio – that Red Cross Emergency radio
My favorite gift this year.
The part that scares me most is that so many otherwise rational people have bought into the denial hook, line and sinker. There will be no progress as long as these points of view are granted legitimacy. They need to be marginalized. Not silenced or censored but accorded exactly the amount of consideration such an absurd opinion deserves.
I used to have a crank combination radio/flashlight but I lent it to my brother when he went camping and now it’s gone.
As per the HADCRUT4 data set, there’s been no statistically significant global warming in 16 years. From my recent diary, here are temperature anomalies for the last 10 years:
So, in 2012, there was an increase of .031 Celsius from the year before. If we pretended that temperature was an extensive property (it’s not – it’s an intensive property), we might say that if all the globe’s .031 temperature increase was due to the US 2% are contribution, then the US temperature should have risen 50x(.031) = 1.55 Celsius. x 1.8 to get Fahrenheit degrees = 2.79 F But the continguous US was about 3.2 F hotter, so, on average, the rest of the world, outside the contiguous US, would have to have cooled, relative to 2011, to compensate for the large US heating.
This gives only a rough idea of what a real determination (calculation) of what the rest of the world did in 2012, however, if it’s correct in it’s conclusion, then we are left with the embarassing realization that most of the world cooled in 2012, though not by very much.
Well! having a headline that reads “Overall, the world cooled in 2012, ignoring the notable exception for the contiguous US” would not be very scary….. I do wonder, though, what the headlines are reading in Europe.
Re Hansen: Fuggetaboutit! As we are discussing a religious topic, I think I do well to quote Jesus:
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Besides his, ah-h-h-h, talent in rearranging data, he has an equally, ah-h-h-h, pronounced talent in making predictions. Take a look, for yourself.
Hmm. OK, there’s also a tacit assumption that ‘extensive’ temperature ‘density’ is constant. As the contiguous US is in a temperature (Goldilocks!) zone, this may not be a horrible assumption to make.
Oops. I meant
Anyone who says there is no warming, is either a liar, stupid, or has something wrong with their thinking process.
Sorry, this is probably wrong (even given it’s lax assumptions). That’s because 3.2F probably refers to the contiguous US. That’s only 1.58% of the earth’s area, so I should have used 100/1.58 = 63x.
63x(.031) = 1.55 Celsius. x 1.8 to get Fahrenheit degrees = 3.52 F. This is .32F more than 3.2F, so there is still “heat to spread around”, outside the contiguous US. I.e., overall, outside the US would also have heated up. This is about a 10% correction, so outside the contiguous US, and average temperature would have gone up 10%(.031), which is .0031C. Rather small, but positive.
Lubos Motl covered the 2012 temperature aggregate, and tells us that:
The UAH AMSU data says 2012 was the 9th warmest year since 1979.