Eric Williams's List: Climate

• U.S. doesn’t stand to benefit much from the construction of the Keystone XL.

• Given the access the pipeline will grant tar sands oil to overseas markets and the advantage that pipelines have over rail, the Keystone XL will undoubtedly support tar sands production, promote continued tar sands investment, and contribute to Canada’s already significant greenhouse gas output.

   

  So, if the decision really comes down to the pipeline's climate impact - and not something else - the choice is clear.

• After another U.N. climate conference gave only modest results, European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says the process needs to provide a "substantial answer" to global warming in two years to remain relevant.

  • Two years? It's already too late.

• For the first time, the Pentagon has a comprehensive strategy for the Arctic. This move is prompted mainly because climate change is causing the sea ice to steadily melt and allow ships to access more of the Arctic Ocean.
• The more ice melts, the more that governments and oil companies will be tempted by the oil underneath the ice.
• • No wonder they deny warming. More of the earth to exploit for profit.

• All of these goals change as the globe warms, sea levels rise, and sea ice melts. Hagel said that “the challenge of global climate change, while not new to history, is new to the modern world.”

   

  Climate change does not directly cause conflict, but it can add to the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. … The effects of climate change and new energy resources are far-reaching and unpredictable, demanding our attention and strategic thinking. While the opening of the Arctic will create unprecedented challenges, it will also create historic opportunities.
• The U.S. military is the largest single consumer of energy and oil on the planet. This is not good for the Pentagon’s budget, but it is also helping to drive the climatic forces that create the expanded responsibilities outlined in the Arctic Strategy. There are many efforts afoot in all branches of the military to reduce consumption and become reliant on more renewable sources of energy.

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• Never mind that Soon, an astrophysicist, is no specialist on global sea levels, and his most notable writing on the subject was an op-ed article in the conservative Washington Times last year.
• • Not peer reviewed? :P
• beyond his primary expertise
• he has been bankrolled by hundreds of thousands of dollars in energy industry grants.
• But in Washington, where facts generally lose the race with opinion
• “Their strategy isn’t to convince people that the scientists are wrong. Their strategy is simply to raise the specter that there is enough doubt that . . . you should just move onto the next issue until this gets sorted out,’’ he said. “It gives credibility to a crank point of view.’’
• The conclusion? Global warming is real, and human activities are almost certainly a major cause.
• And here is the official view of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society: “The scientific evidence is clear: Global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.”
• By latest count, 127 US representatives and 30 senators believe that global warming is not happening or, if it is, that human activity is not the cause
• This muddled picture has made congressional action all but impossible.
• “polluters manufactured a blizzard of industry-funded doubt. If not for that, the climate bill would have passed.”
• There are shrill and over-the-top voices on the left as well, more focused on pillorying climate-change skeptics than in promoting reasoned debate
• But conservatives and energy interests have the lengthiest record of funding and promoting reports that attempt to debunk prevailing theories of climate change.
• He has proved adept at winning grants. Over the last dozen years, he has received research funding of more than a $1.2 million from sources such as ExxonMobil; Southern Company, a foundation run by the Koch brothers, conservative energy moguls; and industry trade group American Petroleum Institute, according to public documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act
• Industry and conservative sources have been the sole source of his funding since 2006
• He said he is seeking only to spread the truth about science as he sees it. Scientists who say carbon-dioxide-induced warming is a virtual certainty, he added, have allowed political fashion to compromise their integrity.
• • Pot meet Kettle
• Published in two separate peer-reviewed journals, the paper contained an acknowledgment: part of the research funding came from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s lobbying arm in Washington.

• “Every self-respecting climate scientist that I knew that read it agreed, this was appalling,’’ Mann said. “It wasn’t legitimate. It was simply a politically motivated attack on a body of work masquerading as science.’’

   

  Despite doubts about its validity and questions about the authors’ ties to industry, the paper gained immediate traction in Washington.
• “You attack the science, you create confusion, you divide the public,’’ he said, “and that’s enough to make sure there will be no policy progress in this country.’’
• His work has been cited in floor speeches by members of the US House and Senate, who say evidence of human-induced climate change is lacking and does not justify the economic costs of cutting greenhouse emissions. Among his admirers: Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who has cited Soon’s research in the Senate and famously denounced global warming as “the greatest hoax every perpetrated on the American people.’’
• “The whole point of science is to question accepted dogmas,’’ Dyson said in an e-mail to the Globe. “For that reason, I respect Willie Soon as a good scientist and a courageous citizen.’’
• • I had no idea Dyson was still alive...but if this quote is correct, my respect level is dropping rapidly.
• Soon said he is required by the center to recite a disclaimer – saying his views are his own, and not that of Harvard-Smithsonian — each time he speaks or writes on anything outside his expertise in solar radiation. But the complexities of his relationship with Harvard-Smithsonian are often ignored by his sponsors and conference hosts eager to showcase his impressive credentials.
• “As far as I can tell,’’ said Shapiro, “no one pays any attention to him.’’
• While that may be true in the academic environs of Cambridge, it is definitely not the case in Washington.
• Soon maintains affiliations with several industry-supported conservative groups that package and aggressively promote his scientific reviews, videos, blogs, and op-eds in an effort to shape the climate-change debate. In addition to the Heartland Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Chicago, they include two nonprofits in Washington where Soon serves as a scientific advisor, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Science and Public Policy Institute.
• All three organizations — which have received energy industry funding — vigorously oppose greenhouse gas regulations and operate websites that provide endless debating fodder for climate-change skeptics in the United States and abroad.

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