Stupid Goes Viral: Climate Zombies of HI, ID, MN, MT, OR, WY

R L Miller’s post at Daily Kos looks at the Republican positions on climate science in six states, including Idaho.

This is not a complete project. If you can add anything on candidates’ positions that would be interesting.  R L asked us for some help, but we were not able to give him much.

Stupid Goes Viral: Climate Zombies of HI, ID, MN, MT, OR, WY. By R L Miller

Senator Crapo is one of Idaho’s U.S. Senators. He is running for re-election this year, and looks very solid for winning over Democrat Tom Sullivan.  On Crapo: “In Idaho, Senator Mike Crapo believes that ‘While there is no dispute over the fact that the Earth’s climate has changed many times over the planet’s history, the underlying cause of these climactic shifts is ultimately not well-understood and is a matter of vigorous debate.’ “

The truth about global warming (WaPO editorial)

Two brand new government reports show overwhelming scientific case for global warming — and go out of the way to repudiate skeptics-

The truth about global warming. Monday, August 2, 2010. Washington Post editorial.

Meanwhile Rolling Stone has a great article on the sorry death of the Climate Bill (or better stated the death of the sorry Climate Bill).  It is premium content.

Once again Obama was gutless and clueless.*

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*Note: I feel bad writing all these negative things about Obama because the Republican office-holders are so much worse. Nevertheless, he should not be allowed to continue in his failures.

Climate Expertise Lacking among Global Warming Contrarians

Yes, there are skeptical scientists, but climatology is hardly ever their field-

Climate Expertise Lacking among Global Warming Contrarians. “A majority of scientists who dispute global warming lack the climatological expertise to do so.”  By David Biello. Scientific American.

I would say that the “contrarians” have largely carried the day in public opinion.  Too bad scientific truth isn’t discovered that way.  Then the Earth would indeed be flat.

Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns

The news just keeps getting worse on this blowout-

Methane gas (natural gas) is what caused the explosion. Natural gas not only profoundly depletes oxygen in the ocean at this concentration, it is also a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. I have to wonder if a gas emission of this magnitude is a climate  changer.  Some alternative theories of global warming suggest that sudden oceanic emissions of methane are what really brought on abrupt global warming.

Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns. By Matthew Brown. Associated Press.

Federal agencies may have to consider climate before they act

The Obama administration may issue an order that would expand the National Environmental Policy Act’s scope to prevent global warming. The move could open up new avenues to challenge projects.

I review grazing allotment renewal documents and rarely, if ever, have I seen climate change discussed.  When it is discussed, and only in response to comments by WWP, the agencies claim that issues related to global warming and livestock grazing are beyond the scope of the project. Unfortunately, grazing compounds the effects of global warming by creating warmer and drier landscapes which, in turn, impacts wildlife.

There is a very good case to be made that eliminating grazing from public lands would also reduce the effects of global warming by 1) reducing desertification and 2) increasing carbon sequestration in soils. As Brian Ertz has illustrated in his post from last year, public lands can be very effective carbon sinks if allowed rest from livestock grazing. This is an important idea that needs to be kept in mind when discussing public lands ranching.

Federal agencies may have to consider climate before they act
By Jim Tankersley – L.A. Times

Heavily impacted soils and vegetation in Nevada's desert. © Ken Cole

Sage Brush with ancient soil crusts Cave Valley, Nevada © Ken Cole

Senate Democrats advance climate bill without GOP

Republicans boycotted the committee vote, so the Democrats passed the bill without them, 10 to 1-

What the Democrats did is what you might expect, but in the past the Democrats have said, “Oh we need some bipartisanship,” when it is clear the minority at present wants nothing to do with bipartisanship.

I guess no one will be surprised by the one Democrat to vote against it — Montana’s nobleman senator Max Baucus.

So the climate bill will head to the floor of the Senate.

Senate Democrats advance climate bill without GOP. By Dina Cappiello. The Associated Press
New on Nov. 6.  Democrats Push Climate Bill Through Panel Without G.O.P. Debate. By John M. Broder. New York Times.

Breathtaking and misleading fire story in the Missoulian

“Red and dead” forests make extreme fires; but most bug-killed forests are not in this stage-

Beetle-ravaged trees change wildfire behavior in western Montana. By Rob Chaney the Missoulian

Beetles are changing the fire regime in Western Montana. Unfortunately, this story did not get to the key until the end – – “Dead trees will lose those red needles within three to five years. The bare-branch trees tend to be less burnable than either green live trees or red dead ones.” . . . Rob Chaney

These needles are so flammable that they will burn when dripping wet and a cold temperature! In fact, most just killed, and, therefore red lodgepole pine, the most common beetle killed tree, are red for just one year. Then the needles drop. As a result, most dead trees present less of a fire danger rather than more. There are exceptions, such as piles of windthrown, jackstrawed dead timber.

The story also failed to mention that this is not a problem limited to Western Montana. The great die-off extends from the Yukon to New Mexico, making local efforts to deal with the problem with salvage logging or spraying of no use.

I’d mention global warming but all the tea partiers will probably jump down my throat. It’s really too late to do much. The pine forests are pretty much all going to die.

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Related. Weather wipes out wildfires in Montana. Great Falls Tribune.

New US office takes fresh approach to carbon

One possibility: Industrial emitters of CO2 partner with landowners to plant forests-

By Todd Wilkinson
New US office takes fresh approach to carbon. Christian Science Monitor.

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Added by RM. Related article. It’s cold. Does that debunk global warming? By Eoin O’Carroll. Christian Science Monitor.

How Meat, Especially Beef, Contributes to Global Warming

Those who write for this blog don’t think, “beef, it’s what for dinner.”  If you care about the future of humankind, at least it shouldn’t be.

This from the Scientific American.

How Meat Contributes to Global Warming: Producing beef for the table has a surprising environmental cost: it releases prodigious amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. By Nathan Fiala

Carl Pope Switches Roles at the Sierra Club

Most media are saying, “Pope steps down”

Carl Pope Switches Roles at the Sierra Club. By Kate Galbraith. New York Times.

This makes a lot of news not just because of the size of the Sierra Club, but its high level of activity.

Pope has been the Club’s executive director for a long time. He is moving over to a related organization working on climate change. Another article on this said that “In his new position, Pope would likely be the Sierra Club’s “public face” on global warming issues.

Pope gets a lot of credit for moving hard into effort to reduce CO2 emissions, but he has been criticized for being an advocate of centralized, big, alternative energy; and pushing the Club to endorse that.

The Club has been very helpful stopping a coal plant slated for just NW of Pocatello, Idaho, where I live. When I say “coal plant,” I mean just that. It wasn’t clear what the company wanted to do with coal; just something “coalish” — generate electricity? gasify coal? produce industrial chemicals? produce chemicals for fertilizer?  Whatever, however;  local business cheerleaders mostly jumped on their wagon.*

Sierra Club lawyers have been very good at resisting this coal plant unless the CO2 emissions are much lower than projected.

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* Idaho has no coal, but Pocatello is a railroad center.

Idaho is a manure gold mine. Methane can be captured from the state’s pile of muck

Potent greenhouse gas (methane) from mega-feedlots could become fuel rather than fueling global warming-

Idaho’s energy czar wants to harness power of manure. By The Associated Press

Southern Idaho is full of vast stinky livestock feedlots (dairy and beef). Here is one way to amelioate the situation

2007 produces bad news on increase of all greenhouse gases

There is bad news all around here, with the most alarming being the sudden rise in emissions of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas (25x that of carbon dioxide). If the arctic tundra has begun to seriously outgas, the outlook is very grim.

Greenhouse Gases, Carbon Dioxide And Methane, Rise Sharply In 2007. Science Daily

Carbon dioxide, methane up sharply in 2007-US govt. Reuters.

In British Columbia, a beetle upsets climate calculus. A record infestation of beetles is turning western Canada’s forests from a carbon sink into a CO2 source. By Peter N. Spotts. Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor.

Bad news beetles in Colorado: Tree killers could add to global warming. By Mike Saccone. The Daily Sentinel

March 2008 sets global land temperature for Earth

I am posting this news because the winter of 2007-8 has been colder than normal in the United States, and once again some people are confusing the weather with climate, and in an irritatingly parochial way confusing the United States with the world.

Low temperatures and heavy snow in the United States and Europe were more than offset by high temperatures in Asia. The area of snow coverage in North America and Europe was the most extensive on record. Nevertheless, warm temperatures in March in Europe led to rapid snow melt. In Europe snow coverage for March was the lowest on record — the change was extreme.

In the United States, “Only Rhode Island, New Mexico and Arizona were warmer than average, while near-average temperatures occurred in 39 other states. The monthly temperature for Alaska was the 17th warmest on record, with an average temperature 3.8°F above the 1971-2000 mean.”

Global Land Temperature Warmest On Record In March 2008. Science Daily.

Bush’s recent climate speech, annotated

President Bush recently gave a speech announcing a new and friendlier Administration policy on climate change, or at least it was presented that way.

Closer analysis shows the speech had a lot of problems.

The [Annotated] Climate Speech. By Andrew C. Revkin. New York Times.

Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post was not impressed either. White House watch: Bush’s Third Climate-Change Fake-Out.

More on “Convenient Untruths”

Global warming denialists have continued to try to make a big thing out of this U.K. court case about “An Inconvenient Truth.”

The Daily Kos has an article about the plaintiff in the lawsuit as well as many links about the case. There is also a link to Al Gore’s response.

Convenient Untruths

Al Gore has obviously done a great deal to increase concern and interest in reducing the change in climate. While the polls show a large majority are now basically on his side, much of the pro and con derives from other political positions rather than any real scientific analysis before opinions of the average person are formed.

Recently an article was written that made sense to me saying that Republicans disbelieve Gore because he is the “un-Bush,” turning out to accurate in almost every case where Bush was not, from global warming to the outcome of invading Iraq.

Fewer and fewer scientists questions that climate change is largely human caused, but “the skeptics,” who have much more than just a cottage industry in sowing confusion on the issue, seize on just about anything to advance their defense of business as usual. Most recently, it has been a court case in the United Kingdom.

Real Climate looks at the court case, but more about the accuracy of the points in “An Inconvenient Truth.” Convenient Untruths. By Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann.

Tim Lambert in his Deltoid blog is one of the few who seems to have actually read the court case. An ‘error’ is not the same thing as an error.

Global Warming, Western Ranching, and the Bovine Curtain

Global Warming, Western Ranching, and the Bovine Curtain. This is from the WWP blog linking to an opinion by George Wuerthner as to how cattle contribute mightily to global climate change.

Just like the old Iron Curtain that squelched any critical discussion of Communism’s failures, we in the West live behind a “Bovine Curtain.” The Bovine Curtain is—like the Iron Curtain—operated by the state, using taxpayer dollars to continuously broadcast propaganda about the virtues of ranching in the West and suppressing any negative or critical information. . . . Wuerthner.