Earth ChangesS


Magnify

Climategate: A 2,000-Page Epic of Science and Skepticism - Part 1

icesheet
© UnknownArctic ice
The scientists seem to have become captive of the IPCC's objectives

Now that the Copenhagen political games are out of the way, marked as a failure by any realistic standard, it may be time to move on to the science games. To get the post-Copenhagen science review underway, the world has a fine document at hand: The Climategate Papers.

On Nov. 17, three weeks before the Copenhagen talks began, a massive cache of climate science emails landed on a Russian server, reportedly after having been laundered through Saudi Arabia. Where they came from, nobody yet knows.

Described as having been hacked or leaked from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, the emails have been the focus of thousands of media and blog reports. Since their release, all the attention has been dedicated to a few choice bits of what seem like incriminating evidence of trickery and scientific repression. Some call it fraud.

Email fragments instantly began flying through the blogosphere. Perhaps the most sensational came from a Nov. 16, 1999, email from Phil Jones, head of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), in which he referred to having "completed Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline" in temperature.

These words, now famous around the world as the core of Climategate, are in fact the grossest possible oversimplification of what the emails contain. The Phil Jones email and other choice email fragments are really just microscopic particles taken from a massive collection of material that will, in time, come to be seen as the greatest and most dramatic science policy epic in history.

Hourglass

Philippine volcano gets louder, could erupt soon

Image
© AP Photo/Bullit MarquezLava continues to cascade down the slopes of Mayon volcano as viewed from Legazpi city in Albay province, 500 kilometers southeast of Manila, Philippines, Sunday evening Dec. 20, 2009. Government volcanollogists raised the five-level alert of Mayon volcano to 4 following increased activity of the country's most active volcano. Tens of thousands residents living around the slopes of Mayon are now housed in evacuation centers and most likely will spend Christmas away from their homes since the country's most active volcano became restive a week ago.
Legazpi, Philippines - Philippine troops on Monday pressed the last 3,000 villagers who have refused to heed government warnings to leave the danger zone around a volcano that experts say is ready to erupt.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from the foothills of Mayon, which on Monday emitted lava fountains, powerful booming noises and other signs of an approaching eruption. But authorities are having trouble keeping villagers away from their homes and farms, said Gov. Joey Salceda.

"There are people who have been evacuated three times, and we sigh: 'You again?' " said Salceda of central Albay province. "We've been playing cat and mouse with them."

After a week of puffing out ash and sending bursts of lava trickling down its steep slopes, the 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) mountain overlooking the Gulf of Albay and Legazpi city shook with nearly 2,000 volcanic earthquakes and tremors between Sunday and Monday, state volcanologists said.

Bad Guys

Wikipedia History of climate gets 'erased' online

A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period - something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message.
Image
This photo of climate scientist and Wikipedia editor William Connolley was displayed on ScienceBlogs.com

Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post's Lawrence Solomon reports.

The warming period is said to have improved agriculture and increased life spans, but scientists at the center of the Climategate e-mail scandal believed the era undermined their goal of spreading concern about global warming as it pertains to today's climate.

Magnify

France Was Once Home to the Atlantic Sturgeon, Previously Unknown on Its Territory

Until now, only one species of sturgeon was known in France: the European sturgeon. Nathalie Desse-Berset, an archeozoologist at CNRS (1), has just shown, for the first time, that another species previously unknown in France used to be present in French waters: the Atlantic sturgeon. This species already existed in the French Atlantic region at the end of the Neolithic 5 000 years ago, and was still thriving 3 000 years later. Moreover, at that time European and Atlantic sturgeons co-existed at some sites.

This discovery is of major importance for programs for the reintroduction of sturgeons into European rivers.

These results, published in Comptes-rendus de l'Académie des sciences in mid-December, are a starting point for new research not only in archeozoology but also in paleoecology and paleogenetics, aimed at obtaining more information about these populations, which are in danger of extinction throughout the whole of Europe.

Bizarro Earth

Throwing Our Energy at Impossible Dreams

Mexico City
© Unknown"as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold"
Signs of cognition, maybe? In the haystack of contentious arguments at Copenhagen it seems only the occasional unofficial commentary pointed to the real solvable source of our monumental collision with the limits of the earth. Somehow in the process of growing ever bigger, mankind got "big", and continuing to grow still bigger is optional. Yes, it sort of "happened naturally", and is also natural for us to be a bit confused about the whole turn of events it precipitates, but it is still also definitely our own choice to be doing it too, and we're simply hiding from the problem it creates on the whole.

It may be easy to question the morality of how the Chinese chose to limit t their population growth by limiting personal freedoms, but did face the challenge. You really can't argue with the fact that virtually everyone else is just ignoring that same profound moral dilemma, that affluence naturally multiplies people. Instead we have a world desperately trying to mitigate climate change with an unqualified commitment to of sustaining the accelerating growth affluence forever.

Bizarro Earth

11 Killed by Cold Weather in Romania

A week-long blizzard in Romania caused 11 weather-related deaths, the country's Health Ministry said Monday.

The ministry also warned people to avoid exposure to cold, to dress warmly and to eat protein-rich food.

It said elderly people, especially those suffering from heart and respiratory problems, should steer clear of trips and crowded places.

Bizarro Earth

Cold Weather Kills 27 in Ukraine

Image
© Xinhua/Reuters PhotoPeople walk under heavy snowfall in central Kiev.
A five-day-long heavy snowfall caused 27 weather-related deaths, the Ukrainian Health Ministry's press service said in a statement on Monday.

"Eleven people froze to death in Donetsk region, three each in Luhansk and Volyn regions, two each in Sumy, Kherson and Cherkasy regions, and one each in Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Rivne and Chernivtsi regions. Seven of them died at home in Donetsk region and one in Ivano-Frankivsk region," said the statement.

"A total of 671 people asked for medical aid due to frostbite, and 465 of them have been hospitalized," added the statement.

Severe winter weather slammed Ukraine last Thursday, heavy snowstorms and freezing temperature caused electricity blackouts in 158 cities and villages, blocked more than 7,000 people in traffic jams and forced airlines to delay flights.

Magnify

Climate summit ends with major questions: 'Breakthrough' or 'cop-out'?

The Copenhagen Accord sets emission limits but isn't legally binding. It's vague on details and has infuriated smaller nations and environmentalists. The U.N. chief calls it 'an essential beginning.'

An international climate summit officially ended here today with an agreement among the world's largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, no formal consensus from the 193 nations present, and major questions over what comes next in the global negotiating process.

Conference attendees merely acknowledged -- and did not vote to adopt -- the so-called Copenhagen Accord, which stemmed from an eleventh-hour deal cut Friday evening between President Obama and leaders of four fast-growing nations.

Obama had hailed the deal as an "unprecedented breakthrough" in climate talks, but it was denounced by critics as too weak to avert the harshest effects of global warming.

Hourglass

Copenhagen closes with weak deal that poor threaten to reject

The UN climate summit in Copenhagen has formally closed with a deal many countries admit falls far short of the action needed to tackle global warming.

The non-binding accord, which the US reached with key nations including China and Brazil, "recognises" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

US officials spun the deal as a "meaningful agreement" but even Barack Obama said: "This progress is not enough.

"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go."

It is up to national parliaments to adopt the accord, after which signatories will be obliged to take measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and start preparing to help poor countries adapt to climate change. The intention is for a full legal agreement to be signed within a year.


Magnify

Palin blasts 'arrogance of man' in Copenhagen

The now-finished climate change summit in Copenhagen marks the "arrogance of man," former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said this weekend.

Palin, who had urged President Barack Obama not to attend the conference in Denmark, blasted the agreement world leaders made late on Friday to begin stemming emissions that contribute to climate change.

Palin tweeted early Saturday morning:
Copenhgen=arrogance of man2think we can change nature's ways.MUST b good stewards of God's earth,but arrogant&naive2say man overpwers nature

Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng