Some of the corporate liars on climate change and their Republican buddies get away with this because the evidence so far is often somewhat garbled. Well, Scientific American today provided two articles to help deal with this.
The first is in the new magazine, entitled,
The Arctic Is Breaking Climate Records, Altering Weather Worldwide,
by Jennifer A. Francis.
Twenty-five scientists, including me, had an epiphany about the Arctic in 2003. The National Science Foundation had invited us to a retreat in Big Sky, Mont. Before this gathering, each of us had been focusing our Arctic research on our own narrow topics. As we shared our perspectives, we came to a frightening realization: the changes we had been finding individually were connected. They fit together perfectly. The Arctic system as a whole was careening toward a precarious new state. And hope of stopping it already seemed unlikely.
www.scientificamerican.com/…
Well, the sum and substance is that when the scientists pooled their data, they found that the Arctic climate has already shifted in ways that are too dramatic to blame on “fake science.” 6 pieces of data comparing 2016 with 1979:
--Winter ice extent: minus 17%
--Winter ice volume: minus 45%
--Winter air temperature +8 ½ degrees f.
--Winter water vapor: + 41%
--Amplification—Arctic average temperature increase versus middle latitudes--+4.4% f.
(Sorry, I forgot one other.)
This all makes enormous sense: with the biggest temperature gradients at the polls, and with generation of greenhouse gasses magnified in the Northern Hemisphere, this is exactly where the strongest evidence should show up, and indeed it does.
The second article on their blog, a wonderful recount of the idea of “the bend in the hockey stick” when it comes to climate change.
Earth Day and the Hockey Stick: A Singular Message
On the 20th anniversary of the graph that galvanized climate action, it is time to speak out boldly
The idea is very similar to those showing up around accelerating technological change: when exponential changes enter into a positive feedback loop, the result is change that is slow, slow, fast, off the charts, nearly verticle. Sure enough, that is EXACTLY what is happening in climate change.
www.google.com/…
I don’t know if all of this can be turned into campaign material. I hope it can. There are no more climate change deniers. They are all just climate change liars/murderers, who will end up killing more people than any war.
Personally, I am not all pessimist in terms of countering these patterns—but it requires leadership and resources. In what I read, renewable energy is also reaching a bend in the hockey stick. And, soon there will be techniques for absorbing atmospheric carbon, to a degree. Losing 4 years of US participation and leadership just makes it spectacularly more difficult to reverse the hockey-stick-like positive feedback loops that are threatening the earth.
Four important first steps: Fire Pruitt, Impeach Trump, sue big oil, make this a campaign issue about threats to jobs and the like.