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Climategate: George Monbiot on Real News

A secretive scientific culture permeates climate research, according to Monbiot. Is this unique to climate science? Do most scientists belong to a democratic and "open" society as Monbiot claims, following Karl Popper?

Michael Brklacic of Carleton University is interviewed by Paul Jay of "The Real News" about the emails stolen from the university server for the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

CRU Email Hack and "Climategate"

There has been a great deal of chatter in blogs on both politics and climate science regarding emails and scientific data stolen from a university computer serving the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The stolen material can be found in many places on the internet at this point, and relatively few scientists have managed to find time to read them or address the issues involved. The most balanced and thoughtful discussions can be found in the posts by Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate.

My only comment at this point is that all scientists need to be concerned about our privacy and confidentiality privileges both as citizens and professional researchers. It is particularly offensive to hear a sitting United States Senator promoting this sort of thievery and promising to hold a Senate hearing in which the stolen material will be aired and relied upon to trample upon the rights of university professors and government scientists here in the United States.

The hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming has finally been conclusively disproven by the failure of politicians meeting in Copenhagen to agree to reduce carbon emissions. Senator James Inhofe announces this exciting finding and rubs it in to Senator Barbara Boxer in the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Senator Inhofe used to chair this committee before the Democratic Party took over the leadership of the United States Senate.

Senator Inhofe was all over talk radio on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 promising to hold hearings on emails stolen from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. Inhofe's hearings would deal not with the ethics of stealing scientific data and electronic communication but with the content of the scientific discussions partially represented by the stolen emails.

The Ed Morissey show on the "Hot Air" blog.

America's Morning News with Melanie Morgan.

A retired climatologist, Dr. Tim Ball, confirms how low academic researchers have sunk in terms of professional ethics. Private electronic communications and peer review discussions are no longer confidential. University computer servers are easily accessible to fringe journalists just as they have been for terrorists and saboteurs from foreign governments.

Das Erzgebirge

My family name comes from this region in Germany along its southern boundary with the Czech Republic. This is also an area with a strong imprint from natural resources extraction. Salt was transported through here during the later years of the Roman Empire. Silver and other precious metals were then mined beginning in the Middle Ages.

Clean Coal!

Anne Havemann of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network tries to clean coal and fails.

Public Option Annie

Direct action musical comedy at an AHIP meeting by the Billionaires for Wealthcare.

The Yes Men Pull Off Prank Claiming US Chamber of Commerce Had Changed Its Stance on Climate Change

Chamber of Commerce Climate Change prank

Chamber of Commerce and Climate Change

A "representative" of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced Tuesday that the Chamber would be changing its position on climate change legislation. Fox, CNN, and other U.S. news media ran the story and then retracted it after the position of the representative was questioned by a different representative of the Chamber. CNBC finanancial analyst Larry Kudlow suggested that the Obama Whitehouse might be involved, and anchor person Trish Ragan left it at that.

Surviving in the Nation's Capital

If Climate Change legislation cannot pass the House and the Senate, there is an alternative. See the Survivaball demonstration here on the steps of the United States capitol.

African Cities and Sea Level Rise

This post is stimulated by a recent African Loft post on this same topic. David Wheeler and numerous coauthors with the Center for Global Development (CGD) have compiled the fundamental data. Alexandria in Egypt and Lagos in Nigeria are particularly at risk both because of their likely inundation by rising seas and because of their rapidly increasing populations.

As noted by Gupta and others (2009), "variations in coastal morphology will magnify the effects in some areas, while largely insulating others." Their complete paper projecting storm surge impacts for developing countries can be downloaded at the CGD webpage here. An appended spreadsheet (.xls 53k) further tabulates the data for 327 cities. Alexandria ranks second and Lagos third based upon the population projected to be exposed to storm surges by the year 2100.

Asian cities are also at serious risk, with Manila ranking at the top of the CGD compilation. Cities in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam are also among the top 20 in the CGD table. Impacts projected for Vietnam's Mekong delta by the CGD and many independent scientists were reported in a recent New York Times article by Seth Mydans.

Wheeler and his coauthors with the CGD are certainly qualified to compile these data and explain their implications for risk assessment and public policy. Wheeler himself stands out as a clear thinker who both comprehends the scientific literature and interprets it to the general public in simple language. Following the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Wheeler (2007) penned a note about the sea level projections in which he correctly criticized their overly conservative use of glacial ice melting rates for Greenland and West Antarctica. As discussed in an earlier post on African Loft, a scenario in which these ice sheets continue melting at their present rates will in fact result in catastrophic submergence by the year 2099 along the coast of West Africa. Nigeria would be particularly affected because of the dense population in Lagos and other coastal cities.

Financial Crisis in Africa?

Analysis by Dr. Okonjo Iweala of the World Bank

The Apostle's Denial

Patrick Moore was one of the cofounders of Greenpeace. He has been an environmental activist for nearly four decades now, sailing into the Aleutian Islands on the inaugural Greenpeace mission in 1971. For many of us, however, Moore first came to our attention for his unique stance in support of nuclear power. In an interview with Fareed Zakaria last year in Newsweek, Moore championed the rapid construction of new nuclear plants as a means to replace the energy currently generated by coal-fired power plants in the United States and other parts of the world.

This morning on BBC's One Planet radio program, Mike Williams interviewed Patrick. Moore expressed skepticism regarding the anthropogenic causes for global warming, stating -

"I do not believe that we know for certain that we are causing global warming or climate change. I believe the subject is so much more complex than we understand."

It will be interesting to see how this apostle's denial is received by members of the scientific community who have made anthropogenic forcing a cornerstone of contemporary climate science.