Earth ChangesS


Evil Rays

Roger Pielke Sr. responds to disparaging remarks of AGW proponent Stephen Schneider: Let's Talk Science

There is part one of an interview with Professor Stephen Schneider regarding global warming and climate change issues published on Examiner.com on May 24 2009. It is titled "The global warming debates: Stephen Schneider" and is written by Thomas Fuller who is the San Francisco Policy Environmental Policy Examiner reporter. This interview is an excellent example of the failure to present a balanced presentation of the climate science issues.

The reporter asked the following question
"More specifically, the principal skeptic websites (Watt's Up With That, Climate Skeptic, Climate Audit and Climate Science) that I look at regularly seem to think they are winning the day. They think data is coming in that questions the established paradigm."
First, the reporter erroneously presented my perspective as a "skeptic" website.

Steve Schneider, unfortunately, chose not only to fail to correct this error, but demeaned the scientific value of these websites.

Attention

Uncertain climate

A person needn't be a buffoon or political hack to be skeptical of global warming. That would be news to The Washington Post's news desk, however.

A Post article on May 19 falsely reported that there is a "consensus" among scientists and a growing portion of the American public that human carbon emissions are causing a dangerous, long-term increase in worldwide temperatures. The facts, overwhelmingly, show no such consensus.

The Post's David A. Fahrenthold reported that Republican "warming skeptics" are becoming ever bolder on Capitol Hill even as "most" or a "consensus" of "scientists around the globe have rejected their main arguments - that the climate isn't clearly warming, that humans aren't responsible for it, or that the whole thing doesn't amount to a problem." He continued: "Public opinion has also shifted" in favor of warming's existence and importance.

Bizarro Earth

5.2 earthquake shakes Zambales, Metro Manila

An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale shook Iba, Zambales and Subic, Olongapo City Sunday morning.

The tremor, which occurred at 9:06 a.m., was also felt in Quezon City; Ortigas Ave., Pasig City, and Makati City, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said.

Bizarro Earth

Strong quake hits Macedonia near Greek border

Skopje - A strong earthquake struck southern Macedonia near the Greek border on Sunday night, damaging some houses, officials said. No casualties were immediately reported

Fish

Thieving Whale Caught on Video Gives Rare Clues about Hunting Strategy, Sound Production

sperm whale
© ScrippsSnapshots from the unique May 2006 sperm whale video off Sitka, Alaska.
Marine mammal videotaped stealing fish provides information about animal's physical features

Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
For decades scientists have been intrigued by the variety of sounds emitted by sperm whales, partly due to a popular theory that suggests that the sounds might contain information about the animals' size. But historically it has been extremely difficult to demonstrate that these curious clicking noises can reveal information about the physical characteristics of the massive marine mammals. Now, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are unlocking some of the mysteries of sperm whale sound production in collaboration with Jan Straley, assistant professor of marine biology at the University of Alaska Southeast, Sitka Campus, and fisherman Kendall Folkert of Sitka, Alaska.

Binoculars

Cyclonic storm Aila to make Bengal landfall in 24 hours

Deep depression over the Bay of Bengal has intensified into cyclonic storm Aila. In the next 24 hours, heavy rains and gale winds are likely to sweep over Bangladesh and West Bengal, according to the Meteorological Department.

The deep depression over west central and adjoining east central and north-west Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm and lay centred about 350 km south-southeast of Sagar Island. The system is likely to intensify further and move in a near northerly direction and cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coast.

Bizarro Earth

6.1-magnitude earthquake hits New Zealand's Kermadec Islands

An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck the remote Kermadec Islands, north of New Zealand North Island on Sunday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake hit the New Zealand territory, 915 km north east of Auckland at 12:58 p.m. New Zealand local time (0058 GMT) at a depth of 12.5 km.

Bizarro Earth

US: Earthquake Magnitude 4.7 Central California

Image
© US Geological Survey
Date/Time:

* Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 22:58:32 UTC
* Saturday, May 23, 2009 at 03:58:32 PM at epicenter

Location 36.392°N, 117.840°W

Depth 0.1 km (~0.1 mile) (poorly constrained)

Region CENTRAL CALIFORNIA

Distances

* 11 km (7 miles) SSE (165°) from Keeler, CA

* 18 km (12 miles) ENE (64°) from Cartago, CA

* 20 km (13 miles) NE (45°) from Olancha, CA

* 30 km (19 miles) SE (136°) from Lone Pine, CA

* 236 km (146 miles) W (276°) from Las Vegas, NV

Fish

Shellfish reefs are 'most imperilled sea habitat'

Image
© Getty Images / GlowimagesAn American costal shellfish reef. These are at risk, because their importance as ecosystem engineers has been overlooked until now
Globally, 85 per cent of reefs have been lost. Destructive fishing practices, disease and coastal development threaten many of the survivors. What sounds like an apocalyptic vision of the future for the world's tropical corals is in fact a chilling assessment of the current state of reefs built in cooler waters by oysters and other bivalve shellfish.

According to a report from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), released this week at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington DC, shellfish reefs are the world's most imperilled marine habitats - faring worse than coral reefs and mangrove forests.

"Shellfish like oysters, cockles and mussels have been feeding people for millennia," says co-author Robert Brumbaugh, a member of TNC's global marine team based in Summerland Key, Florida. "But there is very little appreciation for their plight." Shellfish biologists hope that TNC's global survey will galvanise conservation efforts in a similar way to the 1998 report of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, which raised the alarm on tropical reefs.

Bandaid

Rubber plantations may be 'devastating'

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© UnknownRubber plantations may have a "devastating" environmental impact in southeast Asia, scientists say.
The expansion of rubber plantations in southeast Asia could have a "devastating" environmental impact, scientists warned as they pressed for a substantial increase in forest preserves.

More than 500,000 hectares may have already been converted to rubber plantations in the uplands of China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma.

And researchers predict the area of land dedicated to rubber and other farming systems could more than double or triple by 2050, replacing lands currently occupied by evergreen broadleaf trees and secondary vegetation growing in areas subjected to slash-and-burn farming.