Collide-a-scape

And climate advocates wonder why the public is confused about global warming. Thus writes David Biello in SciAm:

Despite decades of effort, scientists do not know precisely what temperatures or greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere constitute a danger.

Biello goes on to survey leading climate scientists on various threshold levels, who bascially throw up their hands, (except, of course, James Hansen). Among others quoted, Columbia University’s Wallace Broecker continues to talk about the inevitably of some frightening numbers:

We’re at 387 now and we’re going up at two ppm per year. That means 450 is only 30 years away. We’d be lucky if we could stop at 550.

At some point, ClimateGate will run its course in the coming weeks and people will start paying attention to James Hansen’s first book, Storms of My Grandchildren, due out in December. The odd thing is that mainstream climate advocates might get a change of topic with Hansen, but it won’t necessarily be to their liking.

That will be obvious to anyone who reads his book, which I preview here for Nature. Regardless, no can dispute Hansen’s heart-felt conviction. There’s one passage in Storms of my Grandchildren that I found quite poignant, but which I couldn’t fit into my piece. I tend to think the incident he recounts marks a symbolic turning point in his life, in which all his gathering emotions and increasing frustrations are brought to the surface. It comes a little over 100 pages into the book, when Hansen is describing election day 2004. Late that night, after it becomes evident to him that Bush would be re-elected, Hansen and his wife decide to return from their Pennsylvania home to New York City, where he works:

It is a half-hour drive over two-way roads between our house and the interstate highway. As we came around a curve, suddenly there was a deer in front of us. I hit the brakes, losing steering control, unable to react fast enough. We slammed into the deer, whose body was hurtled down the road. We sat stunned for several seconds. The deer lay motionless, apparently dead. Then, at age sixty-three, for the first time since childhood, I burst into tears. I am not sure if I was crying for the deer, the nation, or the planet.

As Roger Pielke Jr. rightly notes, this Times story about lost temperature data is “old news.” It also quotes Roger from one of his old blog posts, without attributing it as such. This is not cool, because it looks like a fresh quote in the story. In a comment over at Roger’s site, I mention that this is highly misleading. He agrees:

Yes, the entire story is kind of odd, as the “news” is 3 months old — hence my post.

Nonetheless, it’s fresh news to Andrew Sullivan, who is not aware how the Times story itself was “massaged.”

UPDATE 1: Jeez, as I was writing my post, Sullivan had already corrected himself and even added essential context from other sources.

UPDATE 2: Sullivan now realizes that the Times story is manufacturd “news.”

This exchange between Republican Senator James Inhofe and Deborah Solomon in the Sunday NYT magazine is priceless.

Inhofe: Can you tell me one reason to close Gitmo?

NYT: Because it’s on foreign soil, where prisoners don’t have the same legal rights as prisoners tried here, and we want to apply the same laws to everybody.

Inhofe: You want to apply the same laws to terrorists that are captured as you do to criminals in America?

NYT: Yes.

Inhofe: Wow.

NYT: Because we have to take the high road as Americans.

Inhofe: I see. That’s an interesting concept.

That’s the title of a profile I wrote of James Hansen, which is published today in Nature Reports: Climate Change. (Publishing cycles can be cruel, sometimes.)  Hansen’s first book, Storms of my Grandchildren, is due out in December. When I met with him a few weeks ago to talk about the book’s themes, as well as other matters, climategate hadn’t yet hit.

Still, there should be enough interesting nuggets in my piece to satisfy climate news junkies. Also, Newsweek is running an excerpt of the book next week, along with a Q & A. They recently updated their interview with him and posted it online, to include Hansen’s take on the CRU hacked email scandal.

I enjoyed Hansen’s book, which I read in advance of my interview with him. There’s plenty to discuss there, including what he feels were missed opportunities (by him) to sway the Bushies on climate change early in the Administration’s first term.  Some great insider anecdotes on his dueling with Richard Lindzen too.

I’ll talk more about the contents of the book over the weekend.

So after reading Monbiot’s latest on climategate, I wondered if he was howling into a wilderness. (He did say he never felt so alone.) Now I see that Tom Yulsman has heard the call and who knows how many others have too. But will they be too fearful to respond, because Morano is lying in wait?

The Oil Drum is the only site I know of that makes you think seriously about the end of the world. But even Nate Hagens, my favorite commentator there,  feels compelled to offer a disclaimer of sorts for this guest post by George Mobus.  Hagens writes:

As an editor here, I continually struggle to find a balance of discourse that presents scientific reality in ways that don’t come across as apocalyptic or frightening. In my opinion, the larger the lens with which we view our situation, the more informed choices will be made towards more sustainable trajectories.

Well, Nate, this Oil Drum review of William Catton’s new book, Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse, is enough to  make even Richard Dawkins embrace the Rapture.

Well, if nothing else comes of climategate, we at least know that Monbiot has been revealed as an enabling “delayer,” now that snippets from his recent column are being displayed in a banner headline over at Climate Depot.

Those of you who are familiar with the twisted logic of a certain climate blogger will get the sarcasm.

My Tuesday post at Nature’s Climate Feedback is up:

It remains to be seen how the CRU hacker story will play out. If it’s an inside job, or there’s another data drop, then all bets are off.

But in the meantime, I think it’s a mistake for the aggrieved side to focus on tactics. I mean, why go there if the bigger picture remains intact? On that note, here’s some interesting context from science historian Spencer Weart, via a recent interview he did with Andrew Freedman:

In blogs, talk radio and other new media, we are told that the warnings about future global warming issued by the national science academies, scientific societies, and governments of all the leading nations are not only mistaken, but based on a hoax, indeed a conspiracy that must involve thousands of respected researchers. Extraordinary and, frankly, weird. Climate scientists are naturally upset, exasperated, and sometimes goaded into intemperate responses… but that was already easy to see in their blogs and other writings.

There are plenty on the skeptic side who will claim (with justification) that the emails show more than just “intemperate responses.” But are we seeing evidence that rises to the level of mass conspiracy or mass fraud? More importantly, has the scientific foundation upon which human caused climate change rests been shattered?

UPDATE: This Monbiot column seems pitch perfect, right from the opening line:

It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow.

He acknowledges the obvious:

There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.

He even goes so far as to suggest:

I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.

Then comes the bigger picture:

But do these revelations justify the sceptics’ claims that this is “the final nail in the coffin” of global warming theory? Not at all. They damage the credibility of three or four scientists. They raise questions about the integrity of one or perhaps two out of several hundred lines of evidence.