How the oil industry pumped Americans full of fake news. The world has known about the dangers of climate change for decades — so why are oil and gas companies still drilling for crude as if there’s no tomorrow?
There’s no simple answer. But any explanation would have to give some credit to the wizards of public relations. For more than a century, these spinmasters downplayed misdeeds, twisted facts, and cajoled the media into mimicking their talking points. “A lot of what we have as PR today, in general, was built in service of the fossil fuel industry,” said Amy Westervelt, the host of Drilled, billed as “a true-crime podcast about climate change.” The first season of Drilled investigated the history of climate denial, and the second looked at the West Coast crabbers suing Big Oil for contributing to warmer oceans and throwing the marine food web out of whack. Pummeled By Hurricanes, Republicans In North Carolina Starting To Believe In Climate Change. For some people, the overwhelming scientific consensus is sufficient to convince people that climate change is real.
For others, apparently, it’s going to take their houses being flooded to believe that climate change is legitimate. That’s what’s happening to Republicans in North Carolina. Having been beaten silly by two major hurricanes in the past two years, a growing number of the state’s conservatives are finally starting to acknowledge that there may be more to the science. The Washington Post spoke to Margie White, a Trump supporter and senior citizen. Despite Trump, Wall Street is breaking up with fossil fuels. Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, and a founder of 350.org.
He is a member of Grist’s board of directors. If you’re looking for good news on the climate front, don’t look to the Antarctic. Last week’s spate of studies documenting that its melt rates had tripled is precisely the kind of data that underscores the almost impossible urgency of the moment. And don’t look to Washington, D.C., where the unlikely survival of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt continues to prove the political power of the fossil fuel industry. Trump administration to replace Clean Power Plan with ‘dirty power plan’ This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
President Donald Trump claimed in September that he did away with the Clean Power Plan, one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious efforts for tackling climate change. The plan was the first to set a limit on carbon pollution from existing power plants. Dispensing with the regulation, Trump told a rally in Alabama, was simple as, “boom, gone.” Of course the reality is more complicated. Because the Clean Power Plan is a finalized regulation from the EPA, the agency also has to put forward its justification for repealing it. Your gift to Grist will get matched today. Is the climate consensus 97%, 99.9%, or is plate tectonics a hoax? Four years ago, my colleagues and I published a paper finding a 97% consensus in the peer-reviewed literature on human-caused global warming.
Since then, it’s been the subject of constant myths, misinformation, and denial. In fact, last year we teamed up with the authors of six other consensus papers, showing that with a variety of different approaches, we all found the expert consensus on human-caused global warming is 90–100%. Most of the critiques of our paper claim the consensus is somehow below 97%.
For example, in a recent congressional hearing, Lamar Smith (R-TX) claimed we had gone wrong by only considering “a small sample of a small sample” of climate studies, and when estimated his preferred way, it’s less than 1%. But in a paper published last year, James Powell argued that the expert consensus actually higher – well over 99%. Scientists try to replicate climate denier findings and fail. Does the Ted Cruz in you ever wonder whether global warming really is just a hoax?
Whether skeptics really are the Galileos of our time? Whether climate scientists really do just want to make money? Well, wonder no more. A group of researchers just tried to replicate 38 peer-reviewed studies that support skeptic talking points, and surprise! Another state bans agency from discussing climate change. This story is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The climate change language police just struck again. Last month, it was in Florida, where former staffers with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection alleged that senior officials, under the direction of Gov. Rick Scott (R), had instituted an unwritten ban on using the phrases “climate change” and “global warming.” Scott denied the claim. Facebook. Paris2015 : Genève ne sauvera pas la mise. Nous nous alarmons du décalage grandissant entre ce que le GIEC recommande, ce que les négociations de l’ONU permettent et ce que les gouvernements font.
Les mécanismes techniques toujours plus sophistiqués sont déconnectés de la réalité des dérèglements climatiques et des populations qui en subissent les conséquences. Et ils ne permettent pas de neutraliser les tensions politiques, ni de solutionner la crise climatique. The Senate will vote to decide if climate change is real. Senate Majority Leader and honorary fifth ninja turtle Mitch McConnell announced yesterday that he will graciously allow the Senate to vote on climate change.
Specifically: thing or not a thing? Here at Grist, we understand that plenty of things that seem real might not be real (Drake, cake pops), and vice versa (ghosts). Even Australia is joining the climate fight. The prime minister of Australia is called Abbott.
His deputy, Bishop. And together they head a group of ministers who are running an anti-climate campaign with an almost religious fervor. In a report issued this week by Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch, Australia was ranked as the “worst industrial country in the world” on climate action — and second-worst among all countries, above only Saudi Arabia. No one sucks on climate change like Australia, mate. Australia has been named the worst-performing industrial country in the world on climate change in a report released at international negotiations in Peru. The climate change performance index ranked Denmark as the best-performing country in the world, followed by Sweden and Britain.
Among the world’s top 10 emitters, Germany was ranked the highest at 22. Australia was second bottom overall, above Saudi Arabia — which was not classified as industrial. The report states: “The new conservative Australian government has apparently made good on last year’s announcement and reversed the climate policies previously in effect. As a result, the country lost a further 21 positions in the policy evaluation compared to last year, thus replacing Canada as the worst-performing industrial country.” China, the world’s biggest emitter, was in 45th spot — one below the U.S., which is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. In the ski business, there are no climate deniers. Snow sport season may be officially upon us, but don’t get too excited yet.
Some of California’s most beloved ski runs are looking pretty brown, making opening days a little less celebratory and a lot more troubling for skiers and snowboarders hoping to hit the slopes across the Golden State. According to research from the University of California, Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab near Lake Tahoe, last year’s snow pack was the second lowest it’s been in a whopping 90 years, topping just 52 inches. Yes, we can beat climate change — but it will take massive international government coordination. One of my recurring obsessions over the years has been the enormous difference between reducing carbon emissions and reducing carbon emissions enough. There are thousands of ways to reduce emissions relative to a business-as-usual baseline, many of which are relatively painless. But reducing emissions enough to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius — the agreed-upon international target — is another matter entirely.
Plenty of policies and strategies can achieve the former but not the latter. Climat: les lenteurs et contradictions de la politique américaine - Page 2. China to limit carbon emissions for first time, climate adviser claims. China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, will limit its total emissions for the first time by the end of this decade, according to a top government advisor. He Jiankun, chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing on Tuesday that an absolute cap on carbon emissions will be introduced.
"The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap," Reuters reported He as saying. Though not a government official, He is a high level advisor. However, Jiankun later in the day appear to row back on the comments. Climat: l'âge de la pénombre. Preventing climate change and adapting to it are not morally equivalent. Climate hawks are familiar with the framing of climate policy credited to White House science advisor John Holdren, to wit: We will respond to climate change with some mix of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering; all that remains to be determined is the mix.
It’s a powerful bit of language. It makes clear that not acting is itself a choice — a choice in favor of suffering. But in another way, Holdren’s formulation obscures an important difference between mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to prevent climate effects) and adaptation (changing infrastructure and institutions to cope with climate effects). Don't Even Think about It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall. Ships in 1 to 3 days. La majorité des Français estime que le réchauffement climatique aura un impact sur leur vie. Le Monde.fr | • Mis à jour le | Par Laurence Caramel Une large majorité de français — 76% — considère qu'il existe un lien entre les violentes tempêtes qui ont récemment frappé l'Hexagone et le changement climatique, selon un sondage réalisé par l'IFOP entre le 14 février et le 17 février, auprès d'un échantillon représentatif de 990 personnes.
Le sondage a été réalisé pour le compte de l'organisation non gouvernementale Avaaz, à l'occasion du Conseil des ministres franco-allemand organisé mercredi 19 février à Paris. Climate change sceptics are 'headless chickens', says Prince Charles. This chart makes it painfully obvious that climate deniers are ridiculous. Suriname MP urges adoption of environment law drafted by citizens' group. It's Time to Stop Portraying Climate Change as a 'Debate' Faux Pause 2: Warmest November On Record, Reports NASA, As New Studies Confirm Warming Trend.
As Keystone ruling nears, Canada short on time for climate plan. Climato-scepticisme et complotisme font bon ménage - Page 2. Que le lobbying de l'industrie fossile soit empêché dans les négociations climat ! Denial dries up: Americans finally seeing the light on climate change. No, global warming isn’t caused by solar flares or cosmic rays. The futility of “just the facts” climate science. The Godzilla In The Room: Climate Change. By Marcia Yerman The use of comedy and satire to inform and challenge has a long tradition.
Ag Secretary Refuses To Link Drought and Climate Change. The climate change deniers have won. Former Republican EPA chiefs back Obama on climate change. GOP to Obama on Keystone: Don’t think about climate. Dems plan to talk about climate action during August, Republican deniers plan to talk nonsense. Like father, like daughter: Climate denier Liz Cheney to run for Senate in Wyoming. Climate Change Denying Congressman to Head Subcommittee on Climate Change. October 21, 2012 - Stop CNN from Greenwashing Fossil Fuels, and Media Bias Worsening Extreme #Sandy Type Weather. Conservatives seek alternatives to climate denialism, come up short. A Republican calls for climate action — and has to remain anonymous to keep job. Can climate science be rendered conservative-friendly?
Google hosts fundraiser for climate-denying Sen. Jim Inhofe. Google is supporting climate change deniers. Statement from Campaign Director Brant Olson on Google Dropping ALEC. Interdira-t-on les prévisions climatiques. En Caroline du nord, des élus veulent supprimer les prévisions climatiques - L'histoire du jour - Monde. AUDIO: Why Oklahoma Lawmakers Don't Want Kids To Learn About Climate. NC Ignores Science, Tries To Make Sea Level Rise Illegal. Help Melt Climate Denial in DC! Tar Heel Lawmakers Put Global Warming on Hold! (or, a Rising Tide Lifts No Votes) North Carolina's Outer Banks 'Ban' Rising Seas.