Tidbits

From the “settled science” file, Phys.org announces that “Utah mountain ranges may store a billion tons of hidden ice”. Unless they don’t. But if there’s so much we don’t know, including that “Unlike conventional glaciers, rock glaciers appear as piles of rock that obscure large masses of unaccounted-for ice”, maybe everyone should have waited five minutes to declare the science settled on the Nepal-Tibet flooding in a glacial region.
That again? According to Heatmap, “A ‘Glass Half Full’ Isn’t Enough to Fight Climate Change/ We have run out of time for half measures, argues the Natural Resources Defense Council’s head of climate science and policy.” Which would be a bit more convincing, though not a lot, if they had previously declared that we had time for half-measures and used it up with quarter-measures. But if they’ve been saying the crisis was on us and we must act decisively now or miss our change for, say, 25 years, it gets a bit old.
Roger Pielke Jr. offers a very wonky assessment of the new CMIP7 scenarios that have replaced RCP8.5 in the arsenal of all but the most retrograde alarmists. And “wonky” is a compliment here (and a self-description) because these things are highly technical. But what it boils down to is that, as he’s said before, there’s been a “long decline in the carbon intensity of primary energy since 1900” that energy analyst Jesse Ausubel noted happened “without gloomy climate forecasts or dirty taxes”. It was driven by capitalism’s relentless and successful quest for efficiency (and hence didn’t happen in socialist countries in case someone’s been telling you fairytales about central planning).
From the “credit where due” file a writer for the left-wing The Narwhal says (in the all-too-common email newsletter not posted online but the related story is here) that he was “thrilled” when instead of ignoring his emailed tough questions an “Alberta coal company” invited him to tour its mine and talk to them in person. Moreover, while still quite concerned about coal mining, he says “after a full day of exploring the site, my perspective became more nuanced. It’s one thing to read a report about a spill – and it’s another to see its aftermath, and the containment efforts, with your own eyes.” And to realize that the people you might once have demonized actually care about the environment and make serious efforts to protect it. As the piece says, “It’s clear the staff at Coal Valley who spoke with The Narwhal care about the work, the site and the surrounding environment. The willingness of the company to reach out is critical to understand the nuance of its operations and its failures.” The author isn’t convinced… but he has an open mind and good for him.
Also, since we don’t want it all to be bad news, National Geographic offers “Hot Days Are Hard on Bees. Here’s How You Can Help Them Cool Off.” Obviously they throw in the usual climate finger-wagging. But we focus instead on the idea that if you have a natural garden, with local plants, bushes and shade, instead of a monocultural lawn maintained with power machinery and chemicals of the sort the local vocally pro-environmental city hall almost certainly prefers, bees might be happier than bureaucrats. Oh, BTW, the piece quotes an expert that “Studies in bumblebees suggest that these species are not moving north or to high elevation areas,” and thus “might be trapped in habitats that are becoming too hot for them.” Yeah. That or you’re making up this thing about climate change pounding bees into black and yellow dust.
From the brink, and Canadian Geographic, “TUKTOYAKTUK’S FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL AS CLIMATE CHANGE PUSHES IT TO THE BRINK”. Having (smirks smugly) been to Tuktoyaktuk I can tell you very little in that headline bears any relationship to reality. Tuktoyaktuk has long fought for survival because it’s mind-blowingly cold, and only does survive because hydrocarbon fuels are rushed into the community in huge amounts in the warmer months. While there we managed to get into the gift shop, after persuading them to open it briefly as it’s shut during the siege-like winters, by navigating snowbanks so vast we were looking down at snowmobiles, and they had to shovel a foot of snow off the floor inside. (And no, they didn’t have the famous shirts.) It’s on the brink of the Arctic Ocean but no other brink. And when the story claims “Storm surges roll in without warning, flooding streets and threatening homes, each one a preview of what scientists predict could be the permanent submersion of this community by 2050 – or sooner” we sneer because the place is about 15 feet above sea level. Claims that erosion are new are silly (no sane person thinks the current coastline is where it was a century ago but few sane people write climate stories. And we can testify from our trip up the Mackenzie Highway that there’s lots of unoccupied space into which to expand inland if it gets to be a problem where they are.
In case you missed the 97% consensus claim, missed it here meaning felt nostalgia not escaped hearing about it until both ears hurt, because it really does now seem to have withered in the face of scrutiny including ours, Michelle Stirling of the Friends of Science warns that “media umbrella organization” Covering Climate Now, a project of the Columbia Journalism Review with over 500 “News and media partners” with a combined audience of around 2 billion, has a new one, “The 89 Percent Project”, where “Between 80 and 89% of the world’s people want their governments to be doing more to address climate change.” Yeah? Well, here’s some news for you folks. If you live in a democracy, governments that don’t do what people want get voted out, so maybe what they tell pollsters in the abstract is a lot different from what they’re willing to pay for. (Plus as Michelle mentions, a key poll supporting this new claim found that many participants had never heard of climate change before, so their commitment after being given a one-sentence summary wasn’t exactly deep.) And if you don’t live in a democracy, your problem isn’t climate policy, it’s dictatorship. Maybe the CJR should get after Communist China and all its coal plants. Or not, since this project is led by The Guardian and Agence France-Press.

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