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Big Oil and the Demise of Crude Climate Change Denial

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

From 1989 to 2002, several large US companies, including the oil companies Exxon and the US subsidiaries of Shell and BP, sponsored a lobbying organisation called the Global ClimateCoalition (GCC), to counter the strengthening consensus that human carbon dioxide emissions posed a serious threat to the Earth’s climate. As has been documented by Hoggan and Littlemore and Oreskes and Conway, the GCC and its fellow travellers took a leaf out of the tobacco industry’s playbook and attempted to counter the message of peer-reviewed science by deliberately sowing doubt through emphasizing uncertainties and unknowns. The climatescientist Benjamin Santer accused the GCC of deliberately suppressing scientific information that supported the IPCC consensus.

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Modelling the permafrost carbon feedback

Originally posted at Skeptical Science and reposted at Climate Progress.

A recent modelling experiment shows that climate change feedbacks from thawing permafrost are likely to increase global temperatures by one-quarter to a full degree Celsius by the end of this century. This extra warming will be in addition to the increase in temperature caused directly by emissions from fossil fuels.  Even in the unlikely event that we were to stop all emissions in the near future, this permafrost climate feedback would likely continue as a self-sustaining process, cancelling out any future natural draw-down in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by the oceans or vegetation. Avoiding dangerous climate change by reducing fossil-fuel emissions becomes more difficult once permafrost emissions are properly considered. 

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Rally for Canadian Science in Victoria, BC

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

Skeptical Science readers may already be familiar with the dismal performance of the Canadian Federal Government on climate change. The Canadian contributors to Skeptical Science expressed our concerns about the erosion of our country’s science for political ends in a blog post here in March of this year: PMO Pest Control: Scientists. We have also run a number of posts on the rapid development of the oil sands, for example: Tar Sands Oil – An Environmental Disaster  and; Alberta’s bitumen sands: “negligible” climate effects, or the “biggest carbon bomb on the planet”?. This summer, Canadian scientists have been taking their protest to the street and last week there was a rally in Victoria, British Columbia.

In an event organized by Ken Wu, Canadian scientists and concerned citizens rallied outside a Federal Government building in Victoria on Friday September 14th in protest against the Federal government’s policies that have been cutting science budgets, shutting down vital projects (e.g., PEARL, ELA) andmuzzling government scientists. People jammed the sidewalks in downtown Victoria to hear speeches byclimate scientist Andrew Weaver, Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May and “Dr X”, a marine biologist working for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who appeared in disguise for fear of losing his job.

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The Continuing Denial of the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

One of the perennial Skeptical Science top ten climate myths is “There is no consensus” (currently at number 4 in popularity). Consensus means the elements of knowledge that research scientists tend not to discuss or actively investigate any more. Consensus is the stuff that fills textbooks and is the established knowledge that teachers try to cram into high school and undergraduate students’ heads. It doesn’t mean an impregnable bastion of knowledge—there are many well-known examples of consensus-changing revolutions in the history of science—and even school textbooks have to get updated every now and then.

Consensus doesn’t mean unanimity, either. There is always a minority of gadfly scientists who decide to take on the consensus: scientists who challenge the biotic origin of oil or medical researchers who doubt HIV as a cause of AIDS. In such cases, the contrarian scientists don’t typically deny the existence of the consensus; they just think that the content of it is wrong.

Nor does consensus mean that everybody is happy with every single element that others believe to be settled. Consensus in any field has a hard core but fuzzy edges.

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Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

It is not news that people are polarized over their assessment of the risks posed by climate change. But is it true that the most polarized people are those who are more scientifically literate? Counter-intuitive though it may seem, the answer is: Yes, it is. This is the result of a recent article by Dan Kahan and six colleagues in Nature Climate Change (henceforth, the Kahan Study).  This study has received a lot of attention, with blog articles, for example in The Economist, Mother Jones and by David Roberts at Grist.

At Skeptical Science, our goal is to debunk false arguments and explain the science behindclimate change. In the light of this peer-reviewed research, we have to ask ourselves: if we are striving to increase scientific literacy, won’t we just be making the polarization that exists aroundclimate change worse?  We will come back to that question at the end of this piece, but first, we’ll look in some detail at the Kahan Study itself.

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Alberta’s bitumen sands: “negligible” climate effects, or the “biggest carbon bomb on the planet”?

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

  • The climate effects of bitumen development are significant once viewed in the perspective of probable emissions over the rest of this century.
  • The climate impact of coal consumption is greater than that of bitumen, particularly when non-mineable coal is considered.
  • Accelerated expansion of bitumen extraction will make climate mitigation efforts much more difficult.
  • Because of its high carbon emissions and high extraction costs, further bitumen development would not be viable if stringent global emissions policies were adopted.

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DeConto et al: Thawing permafrost drove the PETM extreme heat event

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

Sudden spikes in global temperatures that occurred 50-55 million years ago were caused by thawing of permafrost in Antarctica and northern high latitudes, according to recent research. The trigger for this sudden destabilization was a variation in orbital configurations that resulted in warmer polar summers. This model also provides an analogue for the releases of carbon from modern permafrost caused by current man-made global warming. Modern permafrost volumes are smaller than the estimates for those of 55 million years ago, but will nevertheless amplify the climatic effect of fossil fuel consumption and will provide continuing warming feedbacks for centuries after human emissions cease. Continue reading →

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Eocene Park: our experiment to recreate the atmosphere of an ancient hothouse climate

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

Fifty million years ago, during the Eocene Epoch , the world had a very different climate, with temperatures much higher than today’s, especially at the poles. This hothouse climate was caused mainly by CO2 levels that were twice as high, or more, than now. On our current emissions trajectory, we could recreate the chemistry of the hothouse atmosphere before the end of this century, with potentially drastic consequences for our climate.

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Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London

Originally posted at Skeptical Science

Effective action for solving Victorian London’s sewage crisis was put off for decades, due to chaotic governance, concerns about financing, the interference of vested interests and the complacency and inertia of central government. Once the ill effects appeared underneath the politicians’ noses, a lasting solution was quickly deployed. The modern challenge of finding the political will to deal with climate change is analogous, although there are additional factors that make fixing the climate problem much more difficult.

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Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Personal

Originally published at Skeptical Science

Nobody comes into this world with a fully-formed opinion on anthropogenic climate change. As we learn about it, we change our minds. Sometimes, changing your mind can be easy and quick; sometimes it’s hard and slow. This is an anecdotal and subjective account of the author’s changes of mind.

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