NASA’s Dynamic Earth shows how the sun’s trying to kill us

… And what’s stopping it from doing so: mostly, the magnetosphere.

According to Frazer Cain of Universe Today, this is part of a larger video playing at the Smithsonian called Dynamic Earth: Exploring Earth’s Climate Engine.

I’d love to see the full video, if this snippet is any indication.

NASA’s Dynamic Earth shows how the sun’s trying to kill us
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Kickstarter for Climate Crocks’ expedition

Peter Sinclair has been invited to join a research team to Mt. Baker to document the glaciers on this active volcano. His further appeal for funding is here:

Unlike well-funded, professional climate deniers, I don’t have the Heartland Institute, The Koch Brothers, Oil, Fossil Fuel, and Tobacco Companies paying my way. If this is going to happen, I have to rely on my viewers to jump in and help out, as many have in the past.

Therefore, from now until midnight, Friday, July 13th, I’m running a fundraiser on kickstarter.com, a crowd sourcing site with a good track record, and inviting any and all friends of Climate Crocks – if you’ve ever thought about what you could do to help communicate the science on the issue of the millennium, here’s one of the most direct and efficient opportunities you could have.

Worthy cause, if you ask me. Denialists are way better funded than the scientists and others who actually know how dire the situation is becoming. The Kickstarter is right here.

Kickstarter for Climate Crocks’ expedition

Animated film asks why we’re developing tar sands at cost of First Nations and environment

A short animated film by Franke James asks what Harper’s really afraid of. I think this is just one possible answer of many, and it certainly doesn’t help either our country or our planet.

Am I a radical too, then, for posting this?

Animated film asks why we’re developing tar sands at cost of First Nations and environment

Network climate change coverage dropped 80% from 2009-2011

Funny, I guess something must have happened to fix the planet so that we might “stay the course” while I wasn’t looking! Suddenly, despite the big “ClimateGate” manufactroversy which should theoretically have driven all sorts of crazy TV coverage, the networks have all but gone silent on the topic.

Since 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a climate bill and a major climate conference took place in Copenhagen, the amount of climate coverage on both the Sunday shows (Fox News Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’ Face the Nation, and ABC’s This Week) and the nightly news (NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, and ABC World News) has declined tremendously. This drop comes despite a series of newsworthy stories related to climate change in 2010 and 2011, including a debate over comprehensive climate and energy legislation in the U.S. Senate, a series of record-breaking extreme weather events, notable developments in climate science, the rise of so-called “climate skeptics” in the House of Representatives, and a deal struck at the most recent UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Apparently Donald Trump got way more coverage. And yet, despite his best efforts, he’s very unlikely to cause economic and humanitarian calamity in the near future.

Worse yet, on those shows, 50% of the guests are politicians (two to one for the Republicans, naturally), 45% media personalities, and 5% “other” which I assume might include actual climate scientists. So almost everyone discussing anthropogenic global warming on the news, during what little coverage the topic gets, actually knows what the hell they’re talking about.

What I’ve learned from MediaMatters’ analysis, hosted on ThinkProgress, is that people no longer care about climate change, even though it’s definitely still happening, and it’s definitely humankind’s fault. Apparently the smokescreen machine put up by the fossil fuel industry and the Party of No Responsibility For Our Actions has succeeded in obfuscating the truth of the climate crisis. I can only hope the pendulum will swing again and people will realize that the longer we wait to take action, the more painful the switch off fossils will be.

Network climate change coverage dropped 80% from 2009-2011

Monckton and Watts cut and run from debate with Potholer54

Welp, this one’s dead in the water. Color me completely unsurprised. Apparently Anthony Watts is done with the Peter Hadfield / Christopher Monckton debate, all because Climate Crocks interviewed Potholer. Evidently offering evidence for assertions is “hateful” in Watts’ eyes.

Faced with real, checkable, online debate, where he would have to name his sources, put it in writing, and provide links for readers to fact check him (hmmm..sort of the way I do it in this video series) His CowardlyLion-ness decided to, well, run.

The host of the discussion, Pseudo-Science enthusiast Anthony Watts, told his faithful last weekend that, after I released a video of a Skype interview with Potholer discussing the situation, he would no longer provide a platform for discussion, since Potholer was “colluding” with that “hateful greenman”.

Continue reading “Monckton and Watts cut and run from debate with Potholer54”

Monckton and Watts cut and run from debate with Potholer54

Lord Christopher Monckton: where are you?

Potholer54, a.k.a former CBC correspondent Peter Hadfield, originally won my undying devotion for a series on Youtube debunking creationists. He’s also, recently, taken on climate change denialists, given how much overlap there is in the particular skillset you need to counter their dogmas. One of the biggest proponents of dogmatic climate antiscience is Lord Christopher Monckton. He and Potholer recently had a short dust-up over Monckton’s supposedly unassailable speeches. Anthony Watts, arch-denialist and proprietor of the Watts Up With That blog, hosted what began as an internet debate, and ended as a one-sided trouncing where Monckton retreated from the field unceremoniously with an as-yet unfulfilled promise to return and rebut.

It’s been several months since, and where I would have given up, Potholer is evidently not done with Monckton. He, and I strongly feel all Monckton’s and denialism’s proponents, deserve a rebuttal. Potholer authored an open letter to Monckton and posted it to Youtube.
Continue reading “Lord Christopher Monckton: where are you?”

Lord Christopher Monckton: where are you?

The Lorax used to sell SUVs

Via Badass Digest, easily some of the most cynical and tone-deaf marketing I’ve ever seen. Remember The Lorax? The Dr. Seuss classic with heavy environmentalist overtones? The story about how corporations will destroy the environment to make a buck and it’s entirely up to the reader to preserve said environment?

Well, Mazda apparently convinced the braintrusts behind the new movie to sell old Theodor Seuss Geisel’s soul post mortem.

I cannot imagine the estate of Dr. Seuss being cool with this. I’m certainly not. Way to take the mantle of the Once-ler, Mazda. Sure, an SUV is probably the most fuel-efficient way to transport six people, but seriously, what percentage of the time do you see an SUV that’s actually full?

Just… whargarbl.

The Lorax used to sell SUVs

Michael Mann at TEDxPSU: “there’s still time”

Michael Mann and his IPCC report, the hockey stick graph, which has (by the way) been vindicated in twelve subsequent papers as being accurate and correct in how steeply climate has changed since humans began emitting CO2, have essentially sealed the climate denialists’ fate. Unfortunately, these same climate denialists, by their systematic campaign of disinformation about climate change, have all but sealed all of humanity into ours, in preventing us from taking meaningful action. Mann says, however, “there’s still time to make the right choice”.
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Michael Mann at TEDxPSU: “there’s still time”

It’s not about the “hockey stick”

Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week videos are uniformly excellent. His latest discusses the climate contrarians’ seeming belief that all of climate science depends on that one thoroughly accurate hockey stick graph created by Michael Mann, which has been vindicated by correlating studies no less than nine times (and once by a true climate skeptic). Video below the fold.
Continue reading “It’s not about the “hockey stick””

It’s not about the “hockey stick”