Tag Archives | Climate Change

White Supremacists and Climate Change Denial

By on May 13, 2013 in News 0

Peter Sinclair writes at Climate Denial Crock of the Week:

I’ve pointed out before the comfy co-existence of racism and climate change denial on display at the recent CPAC convention, and been criticized for making so obvious a connection. Well, here it is again.

If you pick up the video above at about 2:48, you’ll see a recap of this week’s kerfuffle about a senior analyst at the “conservative” Heritage Foundation, and his, well, uh, frank, views on white supremacy.

Heritage, one of DC’s leading sewerpipes of climate denial, claims they had no idea one of their guys was a cross-burner – but watch the video and you’ll see him – at a public meeting covered by CSpan – spew a nauseating race-vs-IQ spiel that would be worthy of, well, the Wall Street Journal.

But even the Journal cut that shit out 20 years ago.

Maybe there should be research into the DNA and brain structure of climate deniers and racists, to find out if both behaviors spring from the same genetic deficiency.

… Read the rest

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The Climate Change Culture War

By on May 4, 2013 in News 0
Picture: Joost J. Bakker (CC)

Picture: Joost J. Bakker (CC)

Andrew Sullivan writes:

Tim McDonnell ponders the results of a new study that gave liberals and conservatives the choice between conventional light bulbs and the more energy-efficient compact fluorescents:

Both bulbs were labeled with basic hard data on their energy use, but without a translation of that into climate pros and cons. When the bulbs cost the same, and even when the CFL cost more, conservatives and liberals were equally likely to buy the efficient bulb. But slap a message on the CFL’s packaging that says “Protect the Environment,” and “we saw a significant drop-off in more politically moderates and conservatives choosing that option,” said study author Dena Gromet, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

… Gromet said she never expected the green message to motivate conservatives, but was surprised to find that it could in fact repel them from making a purchase even while they found other aspects, like saving cash on their power bills, attractive.

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Sacred Geometry with Randall Carlson &Vinny Eastwood

By on April 20, 2013 in News 0

Via SacredGeometryInternational.com

Vinny’s NUTShell:

The ancient world and culture is a very interesting topic indeed, how exactly did the ancient peoples of the earth have such precise knowledge about celestial movements, geometry, measuring, time keeping and architecture?

It seems many practices and understandings are now being rediscovered in our time and it might be the very key we need to understanding our own past and predicting future events. Climate Change looking back to the dawn of man through till today appears to be a natural phenomenon with great climatic catastrophic events dotted throughout ancient and modern history alike. The conclusion being that human kind is in fact the enemy as a political excuse to install a world government for the benefits of international bankers and communist dictator wannabes.

Download show .MP3… Read the rest

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Greening the Planet – Dr. Matt Ridley

By on March 21, 2013 in News 0

Via Reason.com:

Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason’s studio in Los Angeles last month to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener!

Even stranger, the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels. While environmentalists often talk about how bad stuff like CO2 causes bad things to happen like global warming, it turns out that the plants aren’t complaining.

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Oh No! It’s Climategate Three!

By on March 18, 2013 in News 48

Paul Brown writes at the Climate News Network:

“Black ops” is what the military call it – using false radio messages, news releases and newspapers, leaflets, and creating conspiracy theories so the enemy is confused, demoralized and loses the stomach for the fight.

It worked so well in World War II that, in every conflict since, all sides have used the dark arts. Many of their methods and secrets are classified, too effective a weapon to allow to fall into the hands of the enemy.

In a sophisticated world, however, the military are not alone in using black ops. They have excellent propaganda value in the commercial world too, winning a war without a shot being fired.

A classic example has emerged in the last few days. A new leak of hundreds of thousands of emails between climate scientists is revealed. The climate deniers are having a field day. A new Climategate looms (see Watts Up With That?

… Read the rest

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Plankton Adjusts to Changing Ocean Temperatures… But Not to Pollution

By on March 11, 2013 in News 1

Pic: Prof. Gordon T. Taylor (PD)

Via ScienceDaily:

Imagine trying to swim through a pool of honey. Because of their small size, this is what swimming in water is like for tiny marine plankton. So, it was often assumed they would be easy prey, especially in the dense viscosity of colder waters, but that is not necessarily so.

Texas Tech Associate Professor and Whitacre Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering Jian Sheng, along with biologists Brad Gemmell and Edward Buskey from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, have discovered new information that explains how these tiny organisms overcome this disadvantage.

Their paper, titled “A compensatory escape mechanism at low Reynolds number” was published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The purpose of the study was in trying to determine the effects of climate change at the very base of the food chain,” Sheng said.

… Read the rest

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Wall Street Exploring Ways To Profit From Global Warming

By on March 11, 2013 in News 9

Turning lemons into really pricy lemonade. Bloomberg on the investment companies banking on massive windfalls as the planet heats:

Investing in climate change used to mean putting money into efforts to stop global warming. Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter.

Derivatives that help companies hedge against abnormal weather and natural catastrophes are drawing increased interest from big players. In January, KKR bought a 25 percent stake in Nephila Capital, an $8 billion Bermuda hedge fund that trades in weather derivatives.

Drought is helping spur business at Water Asset Management. The New York hedge fund, which has about $400 million under management, buys water rights and makes private equity and stock market investments in water treatment companies.

Ole Christiansen is also investing to take advantage of rising temperatures. “Last summer we were exploring in south Greenland, mainly for gold,” says the chief executive officer of NunaMinerals (NUNA), a local mining company.

… Read the rest

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Earth Goes From Coldest Decade To Hottest In Just One Century

By on March 8, 2013 in News 39

Cavell Glacier with Crevices and Annual RingsNever mind what’s causing it, it’s gettin’ hot up in here! From CNN:

Global warming has propelled Earth’s climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest — in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

“If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record,” he said. It is a good indicator of just how fast man-made climate change has progressed.

A century is a very short period of time for such a spike.

It’s supposed to be cold
The Earth was very cold at the turn of the 20th century. The decade from 1900 to 1909 was colder than 95% of the last 11,300 years, the study found.

… Read the rest

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Green Fatigue: Who Cares About Global Warming?

By on February 28, 2013 in News 27

Dry river bed in CaliforniaApparently people are fed up with the challenges of stopping or at least slowing the global warming trend. Sam Masters reports that worldwide concerns about climate change have dropped dramatically since 2009, in the Independent:

Public concern about environmental issues including climate change has slumped to a 20-year low since the financial crisis, a global study reveals.

Fewer people now consider issues such as CO2 emissions, air and water pollution, animal species loss, and water shortages to be “very serious” than at any time in the last two decades, according to the poll of 22,812 people in 22 countries including Britain and the US.

Despite years of studies showing the impact of global warming on the planet, only 49 per cent of people now consider climate change a very serious issue – far fewer than at the beginning of the worldwide financial crisis in 2009.

Worries about climate change first dropped in industrialised nations but they have now also fallen in developing economies including Brazil and China, according to the survey by GlobeScan Radar.

… Read the rest

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