California Must Prep for Climate Change

(AP)  Even if the world is successful in cutting carbon emissions in the future, California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change, a new state report recommends.

It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood-prone areas and conserve already strapped water supplies in the most populous U.S. state.

"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."

The draft report to be released Monday by the California Natural Resources Agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the fall after the public weighs in.

The report was compiled after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed agencies in November to devise a state climate strategy. It comes three years after the Republican governor signed California's landmark global warming law requiring the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to look at what steps they must take to minimize the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.

Over the last century in California, the sea level has risen by 7 inches, average temperatures have increased, spring snowmelt occurs earlier in the year, and there are hotter days and fewer cold nights.

The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heat waves, wildfires, droughts and floods.

"We have to deal with those unavoidable impacts," said Suzanne Moser, a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz. "We can't pretend they are not going to happen and we have to prepare for that."

To minimize the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.

The report suggests the state partner with local governments and private landowners to create large reserves that protect wildlife threatened by warmer weather. Similarly, wetlands and fish corridors should be established to protect salmon and other fragile fish.

The report says farmers should be encouraged to be more efficient when watering their crops, and investments should be made to improve crop resistance to hotter temperatures.

[Professor_Mandia]

To NEWCO123:

My sources are cited using the proper APA source citation format. That means that sources with no author listed such as Wiki sites must be listed before those that do. Sources are not listed by order of importance. If you read through my site you will quickly see that although I use many sources, the three that are most often used are:

IPCC, 2007: Climate change 2007: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press

Ruddiman, William F. (2008). Earth's climate: past and future, 2nd. ed.. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman & Co.

Ruddiman, William F. (2001). Earth's climate: past and future, 1st. ed.. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman & Co.

BTW, I teach full-time and my paycheck comes every other week whether I speak about climate change or not. There is no funding source related to my climate research. My site is designed to bridge the gap between the real science and the information the general public is receiving on mass media.

[Professor_Mandia]

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/

Climate change has been extensively researched and the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that the observed modern day global warming is unprecedented and is very likely caused by humans. Although there is little serious debate between climate experts, many in the general public still think that these scientists are unsure about climate change and the role that humans have played in modern day global warming. The Website above summarizes some of the key research that has led scientists to their overwhelming consensus while also addressing some of the unfounded claims by climate change skeptics and denialists.

The only plausible explanation is that today's warming is primarily due to human activities. The increase in greenhouse emissions can easily account for this warming. There is robust evidence for the man-made global warming. There are no other known sources of warming that can explain the observed modern climate change. People that claim there is no warming or that the warming is not caused by humans have offered no credible alternate hypotheses. Yes, these folks make claims but none of the claims has stood up to scientific scrutiny.

Because I see/hear much disinformation from well-intentioned folks, I feel it is my duty to try to educate people on this very important matter. Unfortunately, it is an uphill battle because most of the real science is discussed in hard-to-read scientific journals and most of the bad science is easily accessible on Web pages, blogs, and other forms of mass media. Worse, there are political organizations such as The Heartland Institute that present themselves as scientific organizations but these organizations are directly and indirectly funded by the fossil fuel industry and others that stand to lose if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

It is fine to be skeptical, but it is never fine to be a denialist. A skeptic is willing to hear both sides and is honest with his assessment of the information. A denialist blindly accepts everything that supports his opinion and immediately discards everything that does not. Carefully read my Global Warming site with an honest, open mind. Then weigh what I am discussing with what you have heard and where/who you have heard it from.

[cydygitt1]

"Carefully read my Global Warming site with an honest, open mind. Then weigh what I am discussing with what you have heard and where/who you have heard it from."

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/
--------------------------------------------------

Thank you professor, for a thoughtful and reasonable post, in this world of DENIALISTS blindly accepting everything that supports their idiotic opinions funded by the fossil fuel industry!

[sudmuf]

Global warming is a hoax folks.....California isn't broke. They have plenty of oil.

[Ichabod09]

With everything going wrong with California, the big three, housing, banks and religion are we willing to admit that morality should be an issue with respect to positions of responsibility?

If so, can we finally get Jessie and Al fired?

[lloydbest1]

by NEWCO123 August 3, 2009 2:19 PM EDT

"Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors
lloyd spend some time with this article
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/MornerInterview.pdf"

So I did....
What I found was an interview with Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, a retired Swedish Oceanographer late of Stockholm University's department of paleodeophysics and geodynamics. The substance of the rest of your post was a distillation of his views.
I have some concerns.
First off the interview was published in the "21st Century Science and Technology". This is a Lyndon Larouche owned publication that, among other things, is deeply indebted to the petrocemical industry and has a vested interest in the "Drill, baby, drill" politics of the McCain/Palin ticket. So much so it pushes the hydrocarbon economy as the magic wand that will lift all third and fourth world nations out of their poverty.
That, by itself, doesn't mean that Morner's science is shoddy. But when he, almost alone, among all the world's oceanographic heavyweights claim that sea levels are not rising, then my B.S. detector goes into overdrive. The data he uses to back his assumptions either can not be verified or there can be other interpretations of it. That he is/was a good scientist is not the issue; Sherwood Idso was also a top notch researcher in the 70's and early 80's before he sold his soul to the same interests that now control LaRouche.
Nil-Axel Morner's heavy involvement with the Natural Resources stewardship Project has my interest as well. This is ostensibly a grassroots organization based in Canada that is headed by noted Global Warming skeptic Tom Harris. His mission is to counter the Kyoto Protocol and any other programs to curb "greenhouse gas emissions. Harris refuses to disclose the specific sources of his funding but admits that hydrocarbon based energy interests are significant contributors.
Having that much of an umbillical connection to oil and gas interests, it is reasonable to suggest that Morner may be skewing his data or even making it up as he goes along. Fraud and intellectual dishonesty runs rampant in academia, no reason to suggest Morner is immune. I note there is no reason to believe the AGW people aren't equally guilty but anecdotal evidence and simple observation backs up a lot of the AGW stance. The same can not be said for the other camp. The letter below, submitted by the present head of INQUA to the Russian Academy of Sciences does nothing to reassure me that Morner is on the up and up:

"Dear Dr. Osipov:

It has come to my attention that Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner gave presentations at the seminar on climate change organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences at the request of President Vladimir Putin earlier this month. Dr. Mörner attacked the science of climate change, while claiming that he is President of the Commission on Sea Level Change of INQUA.

I am writing to inform you that Dr. Mörner has misrepresented his position with INQUA. Dr. Mörner was President of the Commission on Sea Level Change until July 2003, but the commission was terminated at that time during a reorganization of the commission structure of INQUA. Dr. Mörner currently has no formal position in INQUA, and I am distressed that he continues to represent himself in his former capacity. Further, INQUA, which is an umbrella organization for hundreds of researchers knowledgeable about past climate, does not subscribe to Mörner?s position on climate change. Nearly all of these researchers agree that humans are modifying Earth?s climate, a position diametrically opposed to Dr. Mörner?s point of view.

Sincerely,
John J. Clague
President, INQUA"

[lloydbest1]

"Ummm llloyd that's an ad hominem attack with no facts just typical AGW denial of facts and attack the messenger.
I'll bet you accept James Hanson on face value though."

Actually no, I don't. I have some issues with him as well. Particularly his stance that Atmospheric CO2 loads will completely overwhelm the sunspot minimum effect. I don't think they will at the levels we are at now.

But we are arguing around the main point.

The surface issue, the one that gets most of the publicity is "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" or Global Whining" or whatever you and your side or the AGW camp want to call it. BUT.....
....The real issue goes much deeper. That's to say the REAL 800 pound gorilla is our gross over population and our concominant rampant resource use ("greenhouse" gas generating fossil fuel as for an example). If the the developed world in general and our own wealthy and upper middle classes in particular do not put the brakes on their impossible-to-sustain standards of living and downsize significantly we will run out of everything and our climate worries will be completely secondary to trying to survive a civilization crash of monstrous proportions when we do run out of everything. And we absolutely will given the rate we are using up our non-renewables now. That's where our problen is...There simply isn't enough stuff to go around given the numbers we have now. Our warming earth - if it is warming - is a direct byproduct of too many people pulling too much resource.

So, I guess I'm saying that REGARDLESS of what the climate is doing - even if I completely agreed with your position and believed that Dr. Morner and Sherwood Idso were on the right track and Global Warming was just a unsubstantiated nightmare, I would STILL advocate many of the same mitigation measures that those in the AGW camp are pressing for.

I don't much like having to do it, either. I have worked bloody hard to obtain the not-poor-but-not-quite-middle-class living standard I have now. And I've been doing it for more than 45 years. So it's no "privelege" for me to have to give up some my entitlement; in fact I resent it, but I'm afraid I'll have to in order to insure my kids or their kids have anything more satisfying than a mere existance later on.

[cydygitt1]

The Heartland Institute's Quest for "Real Science" on Global Warming

The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-headquartered think tank that has taken on the role of trying to coordinate the disparate global warming skeptics, has organized yet another conference to be held in Washington this week disputing the reality of global warming. "The real science and economics of climate change support the view that global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary," they claim.

But when the Heartland Institute talks about "real science," it is hard to ignore the fact that for years they have defended the policy agenda of the tobacco industry without disclosing that they were funded by Phillip Morris. Indeed, Heartland still claims to defend the rights of smokers, a ploy long used by the tobacco industry to keep themselves out of the spotlight.

Back in March the think tank organized its second international conference for skeptics. At the time I noted that in 2007 the think tank's President, Joseph L. Bast stated that "gifts from all energy companies -- coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear" accounted for less than five percent of the group's budget. While it may sound like a small amount, it still represented approximately $260,000.

No sooner was the March conference over than Heartland announced that it was organizing another, to be held in Washington on Tuesday June 2. For the March conference, Heartland insisted that "no corporate sponsorships or dollars earmarked for the event were solicited or accepted." Interestingly, there is no equivalent statement on the web page for the latest conference.The real impetus for calling the latest conference at such short notice is the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, which is wending its way through Congress.

The speakers at the latest conference, which includes veteran skeptics such as Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels, are not likely to say much that they haven't said before. In a recent interview, leading climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider commented that the skeptics "have very few mainstream climate scientists who publish original research in climate refereed journals with them -- a petroleum geologist's opinion on climate science is a as good as a climate scientist's opinion on oil reserves. So petitions sent to hundreds of thousands of earth scientists are frauds. If these guys think they are 'winning,' why don't they try to take on face to face real climatologists at real meetings -- not fake ideology shows like Heartland Institute -- but with those with real knowledge -- because they'd be slaughtered in public debate by Trenberth, Santer, Hansen, Oppenheimer, Allen, Mitchell, even little ol' me. It?s easy to blog, easy to write op-eds in the Wall Street Journal."

But the purpose of the Heartland Institute's conference is not about "real science," as most people understand it. Instead, its conference is more about maintaining the rage of the hard-core skeptics and their supporters in the hope that any legislation that emerges from Congress will be so compromised that it will make little if any difference in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

What the coal and oil lobby know is that the nature of what is agreed to by the Congress will play a major role in determining what the Obama administration will agree to in negotiations over the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol to be discussed at the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen in December. As Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, stated at the conclusion of a recent meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, "an issue for us is always [reaching] an agreement... that can produce consensus internationally and it can also be approved back at home."

It would be easy to dismiss the Heartland Institute's conference as just another fringe event. However, with the Democrats having only a narrow majority in the Senate, a couple of votes would be enough to water down the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill even further. Added to that is the fact that for a treaty to be ratified, two-thirds of Senate members must support it.

[cydygitt1]

But the purpose of the Heartland Institute's conference is not about "real science," as most people understand it. Instead, its conference is more about maintaining the rage of the hard-core skeptics and their supporters in the hope that any legislation that emerges from Congress will be so compromised that it will make little if any difference in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

[cydygitt1]

Exxon Just Can't Quit the Climate Skeptics

According to ExxonMobil's 2008 Corporate Citizenship Report and Worldwide Giving Report, the oil giant is still funding global warming skeptics. Following an unprecedented rebuke from Britain's Royal Society in 2006, Exxon said it would stop funding -- in the Society's words -- groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change." However, Exxon funding is still flowing to the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory, the home of skeptics Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. Baliunas "built her denial career downplaying the significance of the destruction of the ozone layer," at the George C. Marshall Institute, an Exxon-funded think tank. Soon has "become one of the go-to skeptics, appearing as a key speaker" at the Heartland Institute's conferences questioning climate change. Though the "Observatory is the research arm of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics," writes Greenpeace's Kert Davies, it "has little to do with either the Smithsonian or Harvard," while "Smithsonian has distanced itself from Baliunas, who discredits their name."

[cydygitt1]

NEWCO123 uses a leading source of anti-scientific disinformation:
http://wattsupwiththat.com
----------------------------

George Will and WattsUpWithThat embrace a proud former shill for a man convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges

June 28, 2009

Denial makes strange bedfellows.

Two of the leading sources of anti-scientific disinformation on global warming ? George Will and Anthony Watts? blog WattsUpWithThat ? have embraced a man, Robert Bradley, who proudly shilled for Enron CEO Ken Lay, who was convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges in 2006.

Watts and I, you may recall, got into a tiny dustup a couple weeks ago (see Exclusive: New NSIDC director Serreze explains the ?death spiral? of Arctic ice, brushes off the ?breathtaking ignorance? of blogs like WattsUpWithThat and here). Since then, Watts has been throwing everything at me including the kitchen stink, with four full posts attacking me this month. I was planning to ignore him, until two things happened.

First, Watts ran a truly nonsensical piece (here) by Bradley, who is now President of the Institute for Energy Research, which ?has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.? Bradley is one of the Denier-Industrial-Complex Kooks (*****) ? see, for instance, ?Mysterious industry front-group affiliated with Ken Lay?s former speechwriter launches anti-Waxman-Markey ads with phony MIT cost figures.?

Second, George Will published a piece, ?Tilting at Green Windmills? in which he uses a discredited Spanish ?study? to claim clean energy investments don?t create jobs (for debunking by CP and the Regional Minister of Innovation, Enterprise and Employment for the Government of Navarre, see here and here and here). Will?s piece is noteworthy for this remarkable admission:

[This] study was supported by a like-minded U.S. think tank (the Institute for Energy Research, for which this columnist has given a paid speech.

That?s right, George Will published an entire piece based on disinformation bought and paid for by a think tank that is bought and paid for by ExxonMobil and run by Ken Lay?s former top shill ? and Will also took money from that think tank. At least editorial page editor Fred Hiatt required that much in return for letting Will publish his umpteenth article full of misleading and inaccurate statements.

Now you may say, wait a minute, Joe, sure Bradley served as Director of Public Policy Analysis at Enron, where he was a speechwriter for CEO Kenneth Lay,? who was ?convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges on May 25, 2006? ? but how can you say he proudly shilled for Lay when he has wiped any trace of his connection to Enron from his IER bio here?

Well, I have had the misfortune of knowing Bradley for a long time, since Enron Energy Services (EES) reached out to many leading experts on energy efficiency, and they really liked by book, Cool Companies. Certainly none of the energy efficiency folks were aware of what Enron was doing or they would have quit immediately. I don?t even know if anyone in EES management knew what Ken Lay and his buddies in top management were doing to fraudulently rip-off the public.

climateprogress.org

[cydygitt1]

Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)
January 5, 2009

[Note: Watts Up With That, one of the web's most anti-scientific blogs, is a finalist for the Weblog awards "Best Science Blog" (see "Weblog Awards duped by deniers -- again!"). Even more farcically, early voting suggests Watts has a chance of winning (see here). Since the fine science blog Pharyngula is doing well in the voting, I'd now suggest voting for it.]

In this post I?m going to present the general diagnosis for ?anti-science syndrome? (ASS). Like most syndromes, ASS is a collection of symptoms that individually may not be serious, but taken together can be quite dangerous ? at least it can be dangerous to the health and well-being of humanity if enough people actually believe the victims.

One tell-tale symptom of ASS is that a website or a writer focuses their climate attacks on non-scientists. If that non-scientist is Al Gore, this symptom alone may be definitive.

The other key symptoms involve the repetition of long-debunked denier talking points, commonly without links to supporting material. Such repetition, which can border on the pathological, is a clear warning sign.

Scientists who kept restating and republishing things that had been widely debunked in the scientific literature for many, many years would quickly be diagnosed with ASS. Such people on the web are apparently heroes ? at least to the right wing and/or easily duped (see ?The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP?).

If you suspect someone of ASS, look for the repeated use of the following phrases:


Medieval Warm Period
Hockey Stick
Michael Mann
The climate is always changing
Alarmist
Hoax
Temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide
Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Water vapor
Sunspots
Cosmic rays
Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark
Ice Age was predicted in the 1970s
Global cooling
Individually, some of these words and phrases are quite useful and indeed are commonly used by both scientists and non-scientists who are not anti-science. But the use of more than half of these in a single speech or article is pretty much a definitive diagnosis of ASS.

When someone repeats virtually all of those phrases, along with multiple references to Al Gore, they are wholly a victim of ASS ? in scientific circles they are referred to as ASS-wholes.

[cydygitt1]

NEWCO123 repeats the usual anti-global warming rhetoric:
"31,000 scientist signed a petition....."
-------------------------------------------

You mean the The Oregon Petition from 1998, sponsored by and initiated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM), a single right-wing survivalist crank by the name of robinson, holed up high in the Siskiyou Mountains, working out of his shed? He spends more time ranting about socialism than he does about the climate. He is also just the front for Frederick Seitz's George C. Marshall Institute, an anti-environmental lobby funded by the fossil fuel industry.

When questioned, OISM's Arthur Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, "and of those the greatest number are physicists." This grouping of fields concealed the fact that only a few dozen, at most, of the signatories were drawn from the core disciplines of climate science - such as meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology - and almost none were climate specialists. The names of the signers are available on the OISM's website, but without listing any institutional affiliations or even city of residence, making it very difficult to determine their credentials or even whether they exist at all. When the Oregon Petition first circulated, in fact, environmental activists successfully added the names of several fictional characters and celebrities to the list, including John Grisham, Michael J. Fox, Drs. Frank Burns, B. J. Honeycutt, and Benjamin Pierce (from the TV show M*A*S*H), an individual by the name of "Dr. Red Wine," and Geraldine Halliwell, formerly known as pop singer Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls. Halliwell's field of scientific specialization was listed as "biology." The list was loaded with misspellings, duplications, name and title fragments, and names of non-persons, such as company names.

[Dan_DHRT]

Every little bit helps.

Below is a freely available listing containing more than 500 suggestions we received from hundreds of people across North America on ways they use in their own homes to reduce their consumption of non-renewable energy and clean water resources:

http://dailyhomerenotips.com/energy-conservation/

Of the 500+ ideas:

- 400+ are simple and easy to do
- 275+ cost absolutely nothing to do
- 115+ cost a little to do
- 120+ are tips to reduce clean water consumption
- 115+ are tips to reduce electricity consumption

I hope this helps. It has helped reduce our own utility bills month after month after month.

[superdem1]

Yes, there have been climate changes in the past - mostly due to gasses released naturally through vulcanism or plant photosynthesis. So what ? That doesn't mean that today's man-made gasses can be laughed off. They are toxic, and they are building up and the results are going to be devastating. I just got back from Alaska, and I visited a glacier which is much smaller today than it was only a hundred years ago. This is happening all over the planet. It doesn't matter if a few cities are having cold spells. The changes are not uniform, we definitely need to alter man's impact or we cannot sustain human habitability. In my area birds that used to migrate don't bother now, they can survive the winters which are milder than they were when I was young.