Photo by Eduard Korniyenko--People Seen Through Window Of Public Bus In Stavropol, Russia
Could All the Freezing Weather Lately be Caused by Climate Change? [Yes]
January 29, 2010–Anthropogenic warming has thrown what was once a stable climate into disarray, and may be leading as much to ruinous droughts as to record-breaking freezes.
Climate change is an issue of literal and figurative polar extremes. As the planet inexorably warms, deniers mix in assertions of global cooling with their usual Al Gore insults and political assaults. . . No wonder, then, that people around the globe are dizzy with confusion. Careening between these extremes, they are easily manipulated by seeming opposites, environmental, political and otherwise. All of this, in the end, is complicated by the lack of consensus from gun-shy scientists, who are lately more busy fending off (or feeding off of, depending on the scientist) ludicrous sideshows like Climategate than they are confidently extrapolating the destabilizing scenarios to come, a move that might give all their number-crunching some real-world meaning.
News From The United States of Ostriches
The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies released the results of a new national survey on public responses to climate change. This report finds that public concern about global warming has dropped sharply since the fall of 2008.
Obama To Propose Tripling Of Nuclear Loan Guarantees
Barack Obama will propose a tripling of government funding for new nuclear reactors to more than $54bn. Barack Obama used his presidential authority to help advance his climate change agenda today, announcing that the US federal government and agencies would cut their giant carbon footprints by 28% by 2020.
The announcement was [shown] by administration officials as evidence of Obama’s commitment to his climate and energy agenda, which has run into opposition in Congress and from coal, oil and manufacturing groups.
The White House said the targets – which are set against 2008 emissions levels – would reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions by 80m metric tons by 2020, and save the government between $8bn (£5bn) and $11bn in energy costs.
Obama will also propose a tripling of government loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors to more than $54bn, an administration official said, a move sure to win over some Republican lawmakers who want more nuclear power to be part of climate change legislation.
The loan guarantees, which follow Obama’s pledge in his State of the Union address to work to expand nuclear power production, will be announced as part of his budget proposal on Monday, the official said.
Poorly-Placed US Weather Stations Produce Cool Bias in Temperature Record – Not Warm as Claimed
A new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres shows that Anthony Watts and SurfaceStations.org was indeed correct. There are indeed a good deal of poorly-placed weather monitoring stations in the United States. And these have caused a bias in the record of temperature changes:
Except that when the researchers at the National Climatic Data Center examined what sort of bias these weather stations were introducing into the record–and it should be mentioned that these sort of instrument issues have been long acknowledged as being real–they found that these stations induced a slightly cool bias, not a warm one as Watts, et al. claim.
Average Maximum Temperatures Significantly Cooler at Poor Sites
Climate Progress has a really good analysis of the paper, as does Dot Earth, so I’ll dump you off there for the details.
Canada: Half of B.C. must be protected as hedge against climate change, report says
Vancouver Sun: B.C. is home to three-quarters of Canada’s mammal and bird species, 70 percent of its freshwater fish, 60 percent of its evergreen trees, and thousands of other animals and plants. The B.C. government is being asked to develop a joint strategy for nature conservation and climate change leading to biodiversity protection for half the province’s land base. A coalition of leading environmental groups says that existing parks and protected areas cover almost 15 per cent of the land …
Costs pile up for Wyoming coal
Wyoming Tribune: Despite strong profits, it has been a bruising 12 months for the U.S. coal industry, which came under fire for mountaintop removal mining and coal ash waste in the eastern half of the country. Wyoming’s major coal operators avoided those hot-button environmental issues and weathered softening demand by having most — if not all — 2009 production already under contract for favorable prices. But the industry faces a multitude of mounting challenges, from the cost of production …
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