Christine

“Truthiness” about Global Warming Rampant

by

“Global warming” is the phrase of the decade, the Global Language Monitor declared this week.  Also making the top 25 words of the decade is “truthiness“.  This word was coined by political satirist Stephen Colbert to describe the  fondness for appeals to emotion and gut feeling, rather than facts, in contemporary political discourse.  He particularly applied it to the Bush administration’s penchant to make public statements that sounded true but contained little factual information, and even untruths.

Unfortunately, truthiness is rampant right now over climate change/global warming.  Websites such as “Friends of Science” and astroturf groups like “Information Council for the Environment” or the “National Resources Stewardship Council” have a truthiness ring to them.  The trouble is, “Friends of Science” is not a friend of science but is funded by oil and gas companies.  And the only resources that the National Resource Stewardship Council is worried about stewarding are those of those same oil and gas companies, which fund it as well.

Articles on climate change, whether on news websites or in local and national newspapers, are followed by a flood comments from deniers making unsubstantiated and misleading statements.  In response, I noticed a comment recently saying “Can anyone respond to this article, or only lobbyists?”

Don’t doubt that there is a war being waged right now for the hearts and minds of citizens in industrialized countries.  There are companies with extremely deep pockets who are very invested in maintaining the status quo.  They got rich by exploiting our dependence on fossil fuels, and they’d like to keep it that way.

But don’t take my word for it.  Whenever you hear a discussion/rant on climate change, make sure before you believe everything you are being told that you take the time to consider the background of the person or institution offering the information. Do the vast majority of the world’s scientists really have a conspiracy going to fool the rest of us?  Or are there vested interests out there willing to put time and money into confusing the issue?  If you want to investigate further,  DeSmogBlog is a good place to start, as are OpenSecrets.org and ClimateSight. But don’t take my word for it – check into it yourself!

Annie Leonard Addresses Carbon Cap and Trade

by

Thanks to my sister-in-law Jen in New Mexico for passing along the link to another great video by Annie Leonard, who also produced The Story of Stuff. In The Story of Cap and Trade, Ms. Leonard helps to clarify what exactly that means.  I learned a lot! The video is about 10 minutes long, so load it up while you make your tea/coffee and then sit down to watch the video while you sip!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM]

For more discussion about Cap and Trade, check out Canada guy’s blog here.

Monbiot: Canada the Real Villain in Climate Talks

by

George Monbiot is the author of the best-selling books Heat: how to stop the planet burning; The Age of Consent: a manifesto for a new world order and Captive State: the corporate takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper. Monbiot is in Canada this week to participate in a public debate in Toronto with climate change skeptics.  He and one of the skeptics, Bjorn Lomberg from the Copenhagen Business School, were on CBC radio’s The Current on Tuesday.  Click here, and go to “listen to Part 2” to hear the discussion.  (Lomberg’s argument seems to be that yes, global warming is a problem but the world must choose between helping the poor and addressing climate change?!).

On December 1, on Monbiot.com , Monbiot wrote that the most urgent threat to world peace right now is Canada.  He observes that Canada:

is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man.

Monbiot goes on to describe how the Alberta tar sands, and the dirty oil that they produce, are dominating our national government’s agenda, and determining Canada’s international strategy of disruption and intransigence at international climate negotiations.  The tar barons are holding the rest of us Canadians ransom.

To read more about the tar sands and their toxic effects, go to Monbiot.com or  click here or here.

Meanwhile, the tar sands continue to contaminate fresh water at an alarming rate. The tailing ponds that hold this contaminated water are so toxic that in 2008 a flock of migrating ducks landed on them and died, and are so large that they can be seen from space!  Downstream, animals and people are being poisoned, and ecosystems are being destroyed.  One of the affected First Nations, Beaver Lake Cree Nation, is challenging the Alberta government in court. The Indigenous Environmental Network put it this way:

Animals are dying, disappearing, and being mutated by the poisons dumped into our river systems. Once we have destroyed these fragile eco-systems we will have also destroyed our peoples and trampled our treaty rights.

Syncrude oil sands mining operations. More than 3,500 square kilometres of land has been leased for mining operations similar to this one. Photo: David Dodge, Pembina Institute

Remind Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice that Canadians want a diverse, healthy, and green economy.  The majority of us don’t think that the toxic tar sands are worth the price of our future!

As the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen approaches, check out 350.org and click on “find a vigil” for the weekend of Dec 11 & 12.  If there isn’t one being organized in your community, sign up to organize one!

Hope from Africa: Whatever Happens, Don’t Ever Give Up

by

Tcktcktck – 5 days until Copenhagen.  And the global warmer deniers continue to be hot and bothered.  They persist in their focus on the hacked emails from the University of East Anglia which I wrote about on Monday. Senator James Inhofe is one of the people leading U.S.’s denial lobby; and he also happens to be the U.S. senator who receives the most money from the oil and gas industries.  Inhofe thinks that “global warming is debunked everytime he drinks a slushie and gets a brain freeze” (Jon Stewart).

As Copenhagen gets closer, if you are anything like me, you might be feeling the need for a dose of encouragement. Here’s some:

William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind has made it to Amazon’s top 10 Best Books of 2009, as well as Publisher Weekly’s Best Book of the Year.  It tells about how Kamkwamba, “a simple farmer in a country of poor farmers” built a windmill about of bicycle parts and other scrap pieces when he was 14, after being forced to drop out of school because of a severe drought in Malawi. He built his windmill to pump water and generate electricity for his home. Now every home in Wimbe, Kamkwamba’s hometown, has a solar panel and a battery to store power. His message to  “all the people out there – to the Africans, and to poor people” is to never give up.

“Trust yourself, and believe.  Whatever happens, don’t ever give up.”

Click here view a video of Mr. Kamkwamba speaking at the TED Global Conference this past July.

The situation that we are in is too important to let the deniers sidetrack us. Let’s take Mr. Kamkwamba’s words to heart, and keep up the good fight for a real, fair and binding treaty on global warming. Check out the links on my blogroll and take action.

Global Warming Denier Nonsense Amusing, If It Weren’t Deadly

by

A recent response to one of my posts questioned my statement that there were fewer trees in the world than 200 years ago, saying I had provided no proof.  This same person questioned why it was important to point out that trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen when discussing global warming.

This is amusing, on the face of it.  Except that there is a relentless disinformation campaign going on, funded by the companies that have the most to lose if our economy switches from fossil fuel-based to greener, less polluting energy sources.  Lest you think I’m just a paranoid conspiracy theorist, let me remind you of the tobacco companies’ example.  For years, they poured millions of dollars into denying that cigarette smoke is linked to cancer, paying scientists and PR people alike to muddy the waters.  Can we really assume that the oil, coal and gas companies are any different?  They have taken a page out of the tobacco companies’ book, and are trying to divert a solutions-focused climate change discussion.

Exxon Mobile is the largest and wealthiest corporation in the world.  Rather than retreating in the face of mounting evidence of global disaster, there is evidence that it continues to put money and effort into denial of global warming.  In 2006  Exxon was called to account before the Royal Society of London scientific body for its funding of  so-called “think tanks”, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).  CEI produced commercials extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide; set to the background of sunrises and little girls blowing dandelions, the commercials state boldly “Carbon dioxide.  They call it pollution.  We call it life.” (If I can find a current link to them, I will post it.)

Obviously, carbon dioxide is a part of life.  But the CEI ad – and similar denial claims – ignore that fact that it is not carbon dioxide itself that is inherently harmful, but it is excessive discharges of the gas that scientists argue is harmful to the atmosphere. And excessive discharging of carbon dioxide is what we humans, mostly in Europe and North America, have been doing with our increased rate of fossil fuel consumption since the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago.

In “Climate Change Cover-Up”, James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore offer this analogy:

Read more

Climate skeptics Have Heyday with Hacked Emails

by

Climate change deniers are getting a lot of press out of hacked emails from East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit last week.  They claim that the leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists to suppress evidence that global warming isn’t really occurring.

The timing of the illegal email hacking is very interesting, coming as it does days before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Most of us won’t read the 13 years worth of emails that have been released, but there are several of the emails in particular that the skeptics are jumping on as “proof” of this world-wide conspiracy of scientists.  To read more details, check this link or this one, or to read the emails themselves click here.

As anyone who has ever written an email will know, publicized and taken out of context, we all have emails that could damage our professional and/or private reputation.  Although the emails do not provide any scientific evidence that would counter the scientific consensus that human emissions are altering the climate system, because they suggest the appearance of impropriety in the scientific process, they may be politically damaging. This is ironic, because the deniers have been subverting and distorting the scientific and public debate on this issue for years. As James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore write in “Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming”, the story of denying man-made climate change is

..a story of deceit, of poisoning public judgement- of an anti-democratic attack on our political structures and a strategic undermining of the journalist watchdogs who keep our social institutions honest.

The perilous situation that we are in is too important to let the deniers sidetrack us at this point.  As Greg Craven asks in “What’s the Worst That Could Happen: A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate” : What is the wisest thing to do, given the risks and consequences of this question?

In other words, what mistake would you rather risk, the possible harm to the economy that the skeptics warn us about, or the possible global disaster and upheaval that scientists warn us about? What is the more acceptable risk – the risk of not taking action or the risk of taking action?

To take action now, check out the 10:10 Campaign,which is encouraging citizens to show governments by example and cut their personal emissions by 10% in 2010.  Read more here and here about this UK initiative that is going global!

The Queen in on Climate Change Conspiracy

by

Queen Elizabeth II addressed the Commonwealth leaders meeting in Trinidad and Tobago yesterday by urging the heads of state to lead on climate change.  She told the delegates:

“The threat to our environment is not a new concern but it is now a global challenge that will continue to affect the security and stability of millions for years to come.”

Not known for her fanatical, unconventional ideas, it seems that even the Queen of England can be duped by the lefty, liberal, radical, nazi, communist, terrorist, world-wide conspiracy of scientists trying to fool everybody into believing that the burning of fossil fuels is affecting our environment, and that the window of opportunity we, as a global community, have to act is swiftly closing.  Those lefty/liberal/nazi/communists/terrorist scientists are obviously in it for themselves.  And the corporations that make money from all of us burning those same fossil fuels are pure as the driven snow, wanting nothing but to save us from these nasty people trying to gain financially from pulling the blinders over our eyes and getting us to swallow anthropogenic climate change whole.  These corporations want to help us out of the goodness of their hearts. It’s not like they having anything – like billions of dollars in profits every year – to gain by continuing along this path that we are currently on.  Nope, not them.  It’s those nasty scientists getting rich off of us suckers.

Want to learn more?  Check out James Hoggan’s book Climate Cover-Up – The Crusade to Deny Global Warming. Or go to the DeSmogBlog website, whose mission is to clear “the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science“.


Substance, not Stalling, required in Copenhagen

by

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be attending the Copenhagen Conference after all, it was announced yesterday, one day after Harper had said he wasn’t going to be attending.  No reason was given for the flip-flop.  At recent climate change conferences such as Bali, Canada has sided with the old U.S. administration, Australia, and Japan to block serious 2020 emission reduction targets.  The other delegates at the Bali conference went so far as to boo the U.S. delegation.  Finally, the delegate from Papua New Guinea, Kevin Conrad, challenged the U.S.:

“If you are not willing to lead, then get out of the way.”

To see footage of the Bali conference and Kevin Conrad’s rebuke to the U.S. (and by association, Canada, Australia, and Japan) click here.

Remember, it was in Bali that Canada was awarded the “Fossil of the Day” gold medal, the U.S. got the silver, and the two countries together shared the bronze!  These are awarded to the nations that were most active in blocking, stalling, or undermining the UN climate change negotiations.  While the other countries Canada sided with – the U.S., Australia, and Japan – have all had a change in leadership, here in Canada we are blessed to have the Harper Conservatives once again leading our nation’s delegation.  And they are insisting that Canada is working on the international front “actively and constructively through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to develop an effective international agreement to address climate change in the post-2012 period.” (personal correspondence from David McGovern, Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian International Affairs Branch). Mind you, this is what they insisted at Bali, as well.  As the Toronto Star said of Canada at Bali:

It is hard to argue that one is building bridges when they so obviously lead nowhere.

What can Canadians do?

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”      ~ Margaret Mead

The Science of Climate Change- It’s Elementary

by

I recently spent an afternoon at Science World in Vancouver, escaping a cold rainy day.  In one corner was a display on how global warming works.  I thought it was worth repeating here, paraphrased and expanded upon.  The explanation went something like this:

Carbon dioxide (Co2) is what is put into the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned.         Humans, mostly in Europe and North America, have been burning more and more fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil are the 3 major culprits) at an increasing rate since the Industrial Revolution started several hundred years ago.  At the same time we have been cutting down more and more trees.  Trees clean the air by taking in carbon dioxide and putting out oxygen.  Carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere trap heat. Therefore:

More Carbon Dioxide + Less Trees to Absorb Carbon Dioxide =

More Carbon Dioxide than ever before in the atmosphere, trapping heat in a way the planet has never experienced before

Now I am not a scientist, and admittedly there are disagreements even among scientists about the rate of heat trapping and its effects on the global climate.  There are also other gases such as methane and nitrous oxide that are also affecting our environment.  But this was such a straightforward explanation, one that a child could easily understand.

Maybe Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice need to spend an afternoon at Science World.