I wonder exactly how the “warming skeptics” will complain about this?
Just a reminder, cleaning the air to fight global warming also has immediate health benefits.
From the American Lung Association:
You know they will complain about, for some trumped up reason.
4 Comments | 
air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, Global warming, Health care | Tagged: air pollution, American Lung Association, Global warming, health | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
What did scientists know and say about climate change and global warming in the 1970s? I keep running into claims by modern climate change denialists that scientists in the 1970s firmly predicted a pending ice age. This is usually posited to establish that scientists are fools, and that concerns about warming now are probably displaced because the same scientists were in error 40 years ago.
I worked in air pollution studies way back then. That’s not how I remember it at all. I remember great, good-natured debates between Ph.Ds in the Department of Biology at the University of Utah, and other scientists from other institutions passing through and working in the field with us. Greenhouse effect was very well understood even back then, and the discussions were on the nature of just how much human pollution would affect climate, and in which way.
Savvy scientists then well understood that there were two competing trends in air pollution: Greenhouse gases and particulates and aerosols. Greenhouse gases would warm the climate, but they were offset by particulates and aerosols that reflect solar radiation back into space before warming can occur. At least, back then, the particulates and aerosols counteracted the greenhouse gases.
EPA collection, Manhattan skyline enveloped in heavy smog, May 1973: Chester Higgins/NARA. via Mother Jones
Looking for something else, I took off my shelf a book we used as a text in air pollution courses at the University of Utah in the 1970s, Whatever Happened to Fresh Air? by Michael Treshow. Treshow taught at Utah. He was deeply involved in several research projects on air pollution. He was also a great conversationalist and competitive tennis player. His book was a good text, but he intended it to be read by lay people, especially policy makers, also. It’s easy to fathom, intentionally so.
Here, below, is what Treshow wrote in the early pages about carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, in sketching the global problems of air pollution. Notice that, while he makes note of the predictions of what would happen with uncontrolled particulate and aerosol pollution, he gives the science straight up, telling what pollution can do, depending on local circumstances and global circumstances. Treshow notes the research that the denialists cite now, but he explains enough of the science so that any reasonable person should be able to see that, if one form of pollution is controlled and another is not, the effects might be different.
Michael Treshow:
Over the past several million years, the earth’s animal and plant life have reached a workable equilibrium in sharing this atmosphere and keeping the oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in balance. But man, by burning fossil fuels (particularly coal) at an accelerated rate and by removing vegetation at the prodigious rate of 11 acres per second in the U.S., may be upsetting this equilibrium. Many scientists believe this carbon dioxide build-up is one of the major threats to man’s environment.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is occasionally regarded as an air pollutant for this reason, even though it is a natural and essential component of the atmosphere. Certainly the present concentrations are not dangerous; but what would happen if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should increase appreciably? What hazards would be imposed?
An increase in carbon dioxide would benefit the green plants since they need it for photosynthesis. But what effect would it have on man and animals? Or on the physical environment? The main hazard lies in the effect that carbon dioxide has in absorbing the infrared radiation which normally radiates from the earth back to the atmosphere. If the carbon dioxide content of the lower atmosphere were to increase, it would prevent the infrared heat absorbed by the earth from the sun from reradiating into the atmosphere. Heat energy would accumulate and cause a general increase in the earth’s temperature. Such an increase in temperature, often called the “greenhouse effect,” could cause the ice caps to melt, raising the level of the oceans and flooding most of the world’s major cities.
It is awesome to realize that sea level is actually rising. It is now 300 feet above what it was 18,000 years ago, and is reportedly rising nearly nine inches higher each century. Beaches are being wasted away and tides lap ever closer to the steps of coastal homes. But is the displacement of our beaches more closely related to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations or to the normal warming process between ice ages?
Not everyone agrees that carbon dioxide is to blame. Concentrations vary greatly around the world. Near urban areas, where fossil fuels are burned, concentrations are high; over forested areas, where plants are rapidly removing the gas, they are low. Concentrations also vary with the height above the ground, the latitude, whether over the ocean or land and even with the time of day and season of the year. All of these variables make it difficult to agree on a reasonable average carbon dioxide concentration.
Despite some disagreement, it is generally conceded that carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere at an alarming rate during the past century. Actual measurements show that between 1857 and 1956, carbon dioxide concentrations increased from an average of 0.0293 to 0.0319 percent; 360 X [10 to the 9th] tons of carbon dioxide have been added to the atmosphere by man during this period. Upwards of a trillion tons will be added by the year 2000. Such a tremendous release of carbon dioxide would increase the atmospheric concentrations appreciably unless some mechanism is available to absorb the surplus and to maintain equilibrium.
Extensive measurements suggest that carbon dioxide concentrations near the earth’s surface have increased about 10 percent since 1900. During this same time, fossil fuel consumption increased about 15 percent. This is a remarkably, close, meaningful relationship. The 5 percent difference is readily accounted for, since this much would be absorbed by the ocean or by rocks and living organisms, particularly plants, which absorb much of the surplus carbon dioxide. In fact, green plants probably have the capacity to absorb and utilize far more carbon dioxide than man is likely to release.
Calculations presented by Gordon MacDonald of the University of California at Santa Barbara show that a 10 percent increase in the total carbon dioxide content theoretically should cause an increase of 0.4° F in the average temperature of the earth. Although the carbon dioxide content is being increased about 0.06 percent each year by the combustion of fossil fuels, no temperature increase has been demonstrated. Rather, the average temperature appears to be decreasing. During the past 25 years, when the addition of carbon dioxide has been most rapid, the average temperature has dropped half a degree.
This temperature drop has been thought to result from the increase in the amount of submicron sized particulates which remain suspended in the atmosphere. These aerosols obstruct the entrance of the sun’s heat and light rays, thereby disrupting the earth’s energy balance. The effect is one of less heat and lower temperatures. Dr. William E. Cobb of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency predicts the possibility of another ice age.
Whatever Happened to Fresh Air, Michael Treshow, University of Utah Press, 1971, pp. 3-6.
What changed since then? The Clean Air Act provided the legal drive to clean particulates and aerosols out of the air. Alas, we did not then have good controls for greenhouse gases. The success of the Clean Air Act, and similar laws worldwide, rather left the pollution field open for greenhouse gases. Without pollution to offset the effects of GHG, warming became the stronger trend.
I think Treshow was quite prescient back then. His work is still accurate, when we adjust for the events of history that came after he wrote the book.
Time Magazine cover for January 27, 1967, photo by Larry Lee. The photo shows a typical Los Angeles day at 3:30 p.m., with photochemical smog restricting visibility dramatically. Particulate pollution and sulfates added to the visibility problems, and made air pollution a greater health hazard. An accompanying story was titled, “Ecology: The Menace in the Skies.”
It’s popular among those opposed to the science of climate change to claim scientists don’t know what they’re talking about, because ‘back in the 1970s they predicted a new ice age, and they were wrong.’
Dr. Treshow’s book presents the state of the science of air pollution in the early 1970s. He didn’t “predict” an ice age. He noted that particulate pollution was a major problem, and that particulates and other pollution created a cooling effect that could offset and perhaps overpower the warming effects of CO2, as he discusses in the passage above. In lay terms, in a few brief passages, Treshow notes the conflicting results of different types of pollution.
CO2’s warming effects were well known, and acknowledged. If particulates and other aerosols won the battle to pollute the skies, the Earth would cool. If GHGs won the battle, the Earth would warm.
Claiming scientists “predicted” an ice age tells only half the story, and thereby becomes a grossly misleading, whole lie.
More:
77 Comments | air pollution, Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, History, Science | Tagged: 1971, air pollution, Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, CO2, Global warming, History, Michael Treshow, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Britain’s Independent reported on June 21 that the London version of the International Policy Network closed its doors. The group was known for its anti-environmental protection, anti-science, pro-rapacious development stands.
Alas, the U.S. version clings on.
The International Policy Network, once the most persuasive and active think tanks campaigning against climate change science, has disbanded in the UK after what appears to be a spilt between its leading members.
A document released following a Freedom of Information request shows that the charity’ s chairwoman Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael Fisher held a private meeting in which they agreed to abandon the name of IPN UK after more than a decade. The meeting, held by telephone in November 2010, was perfectly within the charity’s rules.
The minutes of the meeting, which cover a single side of an A4 sheet of paper, were obtained by The Independent this week and reveal that Whetstone also resigned from the board of the International Policy Network in the United States, despite being a leading member of the organisation.
This newspaper has also confirmed that Professor Julian Morris, the founding director of the IPN in the UK and then president, is no longer working for the sister organisation in the US where he was earning $137,000. He is now vice president for research at a rival think tank, the Reason Foundation.
Professor Morris, after speaking at a meeting on Wednesday, June 15 being held by a new think tank called the Legatum Institute, said: “The IPN is scaling down. There were two organisations, the IPN US Inc and IPN UK and now the two organisations are pursuing independent paths.”
Asked whether the IPN had split over climate change, he added: “It is a long and complex story. It is what it is. I can see where you’re going with this.”
I wish I were so omniscient. I wonder where Morris thought that line of questioning was going?
The Independent summarized some of the less savory parts of the funding issues for the organization (John Mashey surely knows all this):
The closure of the free market IPN follows years of controversy about Exxon funding, alleged links to the tobacco industry and contested claims about AIDs and the pesticide DDT.
It is possible, however, that the closure may be linked to family connections involving David Cameron that meant IPN could no longer exist as a major force of climate denial.
Whetstone is the mother-in-law of Steve Hilton, who is the director of strategy for the prime minister and was godfather to his son Ivan. Hilton is the man who persuaded the Conservative leader to adopt a robust stance on climate change and hug Huskies on the Norwegian glacier to illustrate his commitment.
Hilton’s wife, Rachel Whetstone, is a vice president at Google for communications, which has donated millions to climate change causes, including creating 21 Google Science Communication Fellows.
Linda Whetstone and her brother Michael, the trustees present at the private meeting, are the children of Sir Anthony Fisher who was an ideological disciple and former student of the father of neoliberalism, Friedrich Hayek. Fisher senior masterminded the global network of neoliberal think tanks, including setting up more than 150 organisations himself.
IPN was home to unlikely and highly-questionable science claims, and a refuge for cranks like Roger Bate, whom readers of this blog will recognize from the DDT and Rachel Carson hoax propaganda.
The launch of the International Policy Network’s first publication Adapt or Die was reported in November 2004. The charity claimed climate change was a myth, that sea levels were not rising and that global warming would benefit humans by increasing fish stocks.
At that time Dr Roger Bate was also a director of the IPN. Morris and Bate were both named in a letter asking the tobacco company RJ Reynolds for £50,000 in funding for a book about the “myth of scientific risk assessment” which would deny the effects of passive smoking.
Morris denied involvement, but a book titled What Risk? edited by Bate was later produced in which Bate acknowledged Morris for his support.
The IPN name soon became associated with ExxonMobil after the American oil giant revealed in its own publications that it granted almost £250,000 ($400,000) to the IPN in the US between 2003 and 2006. An examination of IPN UK accounts registered at Companies House revealed that from 2003 to 2005 the US think tank in turn granted £204,379 to the IPN in London.
Exxon stopped funding the IPN following a letter in 2006 from Bob Ward who was then at the Royal Society calling on the world’ s largest seller of fossil fuel to stop funding organisations that were actively spreading misinformation about the science of human forced climate change. Ward is now at the Grantham Institute at the LSE in London.
An IPN statement at the time said: “The implication that IPN is somehow being funded by Exxon to promote ‘climate change denial’ (per the Guardian’s salacious headline) is preposterous nonsense. IPN’s founder and executive director, Julian Morris, has personally been involved in the climate change debate since writing his undergraduate thesis on the subject in 1992 and neither his views nor those of IPN have ever been influenced by any financial contributor.”
It is nothing but good news when such a cloud over the bright sunshine of good science, good information, and good policy, goes out of business. One may wish there were more good news in store, or that more of the denialist groups would follow the example.
The good a non-profit may do oft dies with its disincorporation papers and is buried in some musty, dusty archive. The evil such groups do lives on long after — sometimes propogated, zombie-like, in other organizations.
Until its dissolution the IPN has been central to the climate change denial machine. While receiving funding from Exxon, the organisation launched Adapt or Die in Washington in 2004 and published two further climate change books in time for the COP-10 meeting held that year in Argentina.
The IPN also attended the inquiry into the economics of climate change held by the House of Lords economic affairs committee, which was attended by Lord Lawson. Lawson claims in his book, Memoirs of a Tory Radical, that he began to question the science of climate change during the hearings. He would then go on to form the sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation.
The think tank also established and launched the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change which, it claims, included 40 other organisations around the world. The IPN then “ coordinated participation of CSCCC members” at the UN climate meeting in Bali in 2008, distributing hundreds of copies of its report to delegates, participants and journalists for free.
The IPN was launched when the UK charity Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which was founded in July 1971, became part of the international network. During its existence the London office of the think tank raised more than £2.5million from donors. The organisation will continue in some form under the name Network for a Free Society.
Despite repeated attempts to contact her Linda Whetstone was unavailable for comment.
Against damaging climate change, we needed to start major pollution clean-up efforts two or three years ago. IPN’s legacy may yet lie in the destruction yet to be done to to the human race by the harmful effects of uncontrolled, and perhaps, now uncontrollable climate change. IPN shares some of the blame for the lack of anti-pollution action at the Copenhagen conference at the end of 2009, and for the lack of other coordinated international work to control pollution since then.
5 Comments | air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, denialism, History, Politics, Science | Tagged: air pollution, Climate change, denialism, History, International Policy Network, IPN, Politics, Roger Bate, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory, from NOAA At the Ends of the Earth Collection, 1982 NOAA photo by Commander John Bortniak
John Adams observed, and Ronald Reagan was fond of quoting, “Facts are stubborn things . . .”
Here are the facts on atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2):
Mauna Loa Observatory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD (University of Calfornia-San Diego); CO2 concentrations in parts per million (ppm)
As described at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography site:
Description:
Monthly average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration versus time at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii (20°N, 156°W) where CO2 concentration is in parts per million in the mole fraction (p.p.m.). The curve is a fit to the data based on a stiff spline plus a 4 harmonic fit to the seasonal cycle with a linear gain factor.Data from Scripps CO2 Program.
For perspective, here’s a chart from Scripps that shows why there is concern over current levels of CO2:
CO2 over the past 420,000 years - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Resources, More:
- How do we know that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere?
- How fast is CO2 increasing in the atmosphere and is this changing?
- How do we know that the CO2 increase is caused by human activities?
- Isn’t the Mauna Loa record influenced by CO2 emitted by the volcano?
- How much has atmospheric CO2 increased since the industrial and agricultural revolutions?
- What are stable isotopes in atmospheric CO2 and why are these measured as well as its concentration?
3 Comments | Accuracy, air pollution, Cost of Green, Global warming, Green Politics, History, History of Science, Industrial Revolution, Politics, Research, Science | Tagged: History, Politics, Climate change, air pollution, Science, Global warming, Research, Industrial Revolution, CO2, Cost of Green, Green Politics, Carbon Dioxide, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, Mauna Loa Observatory | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Concerned about radiation from Japan?
It’s highly improbable that dangerous levels of radiation would drift more than a few miles from the damaged nuclear power plants in Japan, but maybe seeing some actual readings might convince people there’s not much to worry about — other than our sympathy for Japan, the Japanese people and especially those workers who have stayed on the site of the power plant to work to secure the reactors so they do not become hazards to the population at large. Those workers may be exposed to significant, harmful radiation, and they deserve all the thanks you can give them.
Below is a map of the contiguous 48 states of the U.S., showing live readings from about a dozen sampling sites across the nation. The map should update about every minute (if it doesn’t, and you want to see updates, click through to the Radiation Network site).
Normal background levels are about 25 to 75; a low-level warning might be given if readings are sustained at 100. These numbers are Counts Per Minute (CPM), a very crude measure from a Geiger counter showing how many radioactive particles or rays hit the sensor in a minute. It does not distinguish alpha, beta or gamma, and it may be dependent on the design of the Geiger counter, especially the size of the sensor — differently designed machines give different readings even right next to each other.
So it’s a crude count, but it’s a map of counts.
Radiation Network map of radiation in the U.S. Read legend, use with caution. Click map to go to Radiation Network site.
Here is legend information for the map:
Sampling station symbols, Radiation Network
At left is a symbol used on the map to mark “nuclear sites” by the Radiation Network. Note that a nuclear “site” is not necessarily a nuclear power station. For example, there are nuclear sites designated near Moab, Utah; there are a couple of ore refining facilities or tailing ponds there, but no nuclear power station. The map shows a nuclear site in the Texas Panhandle. There is no nuclear power station there.
Instructions on how to read the map, from RadNet:
How to Read the Map:
Referring to the Map Legend at the bottom left corner of the map, locate Monitoring Stations around the country that are contributing radiation data to this map as you read this, and watch the numbers on those monitoring stations update as frequently as every minute (your browser will automatically refresh). The numbers represent radiation Counts per Minute, abbreviated CPM, and under normal conditions, quantify the level of background radiation, i.e. environmental radiation from outer space as well as from the earth’s crust and air. Depending on your location within the US, your elevation or altitude, and your model of Geiger counter, this background radiation level might average anywhere from 5 to 60 CPM, and while background radiation levels are random, it would be unusual for those levels to exceed 100 CPM. Thus, the “Alert Level” for the National Radiation Map is 100 CPM, so if you see any Monitoring Stations with CPM value above 100, further indicated by an Alert symbol over those stations, it probably means that some radioactive source above and beyond background radiation is responsible.
Notice the Time and Date Stamp at the bottom center of the Map. That is Arizona Time, from where we service the Network, and your indication of how recently the Radiation Levels have been updated to the Map.
(Please note: Any White circles on the map represent Monitoring Stations that are running Simulations, instead of using a real Geiger counter, so any Alert levels that may occur over those stations are to be ignored since they represent only momentary testing.)
Remember, “alert level” is sustained count above 100. But again, be alert that this is only counts per minute, and may be difficult to translate to an accurate radiation reading.
The Radiation Network is an all volunteer operation, no government funding or other involvement. In fact, the network is seeking volunteers to get a Geiger counter and hook it up to the internet to provide even more real-time readings. See “How to Participate in the Nationwide Radiation Network.”
If you’re a denier of global warming/climate change, you should use your usual denial tool, claiming that because radiation at background levels is “normal,” no level of radiation can be harmful. In fact, if you’d make that claim and volunteer to go staff the crews trying to cool the reactors, the entire world would salute you.
Should you be concerned? MIT’s Technology Review explains that the levels of radiation at the plant site itself are quite low, though higher than normal (article by Courtney Humphries). The article also explains that radiation levels rapidly drop the farther from the plant one is; while we may be able to detect increases in radiation attributable to the radiation from Fukushima site, it is highly unlikely that radiation will exceed safety standards:
In terms of potential health dangers from radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, “the people who are in the most immediate danger from acute and severe radiation doses are those people who are on site at the moment and who are desperately trying to keep the reactors under control,” says Jacqueline Williams, a radiation oncologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Moving away from the immediate vicinity of the plant, radiation levels drop very rapidly. James Thrall, radiologist-in-chief at Massachusetts General Hospital, says that radiation levels are inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source: The level at two miles from the source are one-quarter what they are at one mile, and “at 10 miles away, it’s almost an infinitesimal fraction,” he says. Individual exposure also varies widely depending on whether a person is outside or indoors, or shielded with protective clothing. Japanese authorities have evacuated the population living within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant, and have warned those living within 30 kilometers to stay indoors. Some experts say that people living beyond this range have no cause for concern at this time. “This has nothing to do with the general population,” McBride says.
The trickier question is whether lower doses of radiation—well below the threshold of acute illness—could lead to long-term health consequences for those in that area. Thrall says that epidemiological studies on survivors of nuclear attacks on Japan have found that those receiving 50 millisieverts or more had a slightly elevated cancer risk—about 5 percent higher than expected—and that risk seemed to rise with higher exposures. But scientists still vigorously debate whether that risk can be extrapolated down to even lower exposures.
After the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the population experienced a surge in thyroid cancers in children. However, scientists found that the culprit was not radiation in the air but radioactive contamination of the ground, which eventually found its way into cow’s milk. Thrall points out that in Japan, this is highly unlikely because the authorities are carefully monitoring the water and food supplies and keeping the public informed, which did not happen at Chernobyl.
More, resources:
1 Comment | air pollution, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Japan, Maps, Nuclear power, Science | Tagged: air pollution, geography, Japan, Maps, Nuclear Power Station, Radiation, Radiation Network, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I like a hostel. More than once I’ve said I love a hostel. I’m downgrading my heartfelt affection a notch or two.
My stay here, which up to now comes to a little more than four months — twice as long as my second marriage — has been killing me from day one, or so I believe — little by little, slowly but surely, softly with its song.
“Sssssssssss!”
I don’t feel well — and haven’t for weeks. I can hardly lift a finger, take a single step. I walk around like — well, like the living dead.
For many months now — no doubt, way before I ever arrived — there has been a leak in a gas pipe just outside the kitchen door, which is left open during the daylight hours. It’s a miracle of sorts that nothing disastrous has happened despite the fact that guests have been cooking all the while on the gas stove, the leak just a short ways away.
From the online edition of The Hindu, India’s National Newspaper, 2008: “Two died as gas exploded in a hostel kitchen in Bangalore. The explosion damaged window panes of the hostel as well as those of neighboring houses.”
From BBC News: “Last September four Brits were among 13 guests at an alpine hostel in Tyrol, Austria, who were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak from a faulty heating system after some of the guests complained of dizziness, headaches, and blurred vision.”
Dizziness? I can relate to that of late.
A few weeks ago, I got up one morning, lit a cigarette on the back veranda, took a puff or two, stood up, and had to catch myself, gripping firmly onto the iron grate of a nearby Spanish gate, afraid I was going to faint.
Headaches? I can relate to that, too.
When I was younger, I suffered mightily from severe migraines. After getting the holy crap beat out of me in D.C. a few years ago, the migraines mysteriously went away. I was mugged and beaten so bad that the culprits, afraid they had killed me, ran off without taking my wallet and money. As a result of the beating, my daily migraines vanished. Poof! Some good came from bad. But, in the past few weeks, the headaches have returned.
Blurred vision? That, too I can relate to, but it’s not a recent development. In my youth, I worked for Sen. Orrin Hatch. That’s what brought me Washington, the nation’s murder capital at the time.
From “Messageboards – Bolivia: “Our first night we had carbon monoxide poisoning from the hostel we stayed in. People were passing out, being sick and we all had massive headaches.”
Being sick? That I have been. Very, very sick. Massive headaches? Not massive but, as I mentioned, headaches have become a part of my daily life once again.
I haven’t passed out, but I can barely stand at times. One morning Rodreigo, daytime receptionist/nighttime musician, happened to come out the back door to the veranda, where I was bracing myself again, one hand grasping a nearby rail. I had just had my first morning puff of a cigarette. I handed him my newly-bought pack. “Take ‘em!” I said. “They’re killing me!” I went for a long walk along the beach down the road.
From Wikipedia: “Oxygen works as an antidote as it increases the removal of carbon monoxide.”
Soon after talking in the fresh sea air I felt much better — for a short time.
From Wikipedia again: Symptoms of mild acute poisoning include headaches (check), vertigo (check), and flu-like effects.”
A few weeks back a visitor from Finland stayed here for a time. We became fast friends. He was moving to Canada for the warm weather. (That’s how cold Finland is!) He did not enjoy his time here. He was sick with the flu almost his entire stay, as I was long after he left. He thought he had caught it from two visiting Germans who had the flu. They, too, without knowing it, may well have been suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.
From Wikipedia once again: “Chronic exposure to low levels of carbon monoxide can lead to depression.
I was sitting one day on the veranda. Two guests were sitting talking at the picnic bench — one from the mainland of Mexico, one from Switzerland. Both where jovial and happy — on vacation from worry and woe. The Mexican smiled and asked me, “Enjoying life?”
“Nope!” I replied and I was deadly serious.
Shortly after, the two rose from their seats and returned inside. I could read their thoughts: “What’s his problem? He’s no fun!”
I’m almost always “up”. I rarely, if ever, get depressed. And when I am, I try my best to hide the fact. But when you feel like you’re dying . . .
From the website “Silent shadow : silent killer”:
“Carbon monoxide, also known as CO, is a potentially deadly gas that can have devastating effects upon your life — assuming, of course, that it doesn’t kill you.”
I’ve been inhaling the fumes for months now. One day, some weeks back, I felt so sick that I strolled slowly up the street to the nearest hospital, which wasn’t that close, to the emergency entrance. Gathered outside were countless poor. Standing and sitting in the waiting room were countless more. The receptionist didn’t speak English. We tried to communicate with each other best we could. She asked one of those waiting to show me her card. It was in Spanish, but I got the gist. It was a Mexican social security card. The receptionist wanted to know if I had one. I shook my head no and went on my way.
From some internet source (I’ve misplaced my notes; I’m not thinking straight): “Exposure to carbon monoxide can lead to confusion.”
To say the least! A month or so ago, I lost my debit card. The cash machines here are in Spanish. Of course! I pressed the wrong button and it ate my card. I had to take the bus to the border an hour and half away, to the closest Chase Bank to get cash. Gabrielle/Gabby, the hostel manager, lent me money for the fare.
The bad news: Chase won’t mail me a new card until I have a U.S. address to mail it to.
The good news: When I withdrew much-needed cash, I found several hundred dollars that I didn’t know was there. My bestest best friend in the world had deposited it into my account. Who does that but a saint? She has little money to spare. She was up for tenure this year as full professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake but was let go — only to be rehired directly afterward as an adjunct professor, teaching the same classes she’s been teaching the past five years at the same university at half or so the salary. And she’s not the only one! Class-action law-suit stuff!
In the movies. Not in real life.
Once again, from “Silent shadow : silent killer”: “The effects of carbon monoxide poisoning can and does kill thousands of people each year. Some people simply slip away into unconsciousness or a deep sleep from which they will never reawaken.”
Thank heaven for the frequent all-night drinking parties on the back veranda. Few guests if any — carbon monoxide or no — are likely to slip away into a deep sleep here.
From some source on the internet (I forget which one): “Carbon monoxide poisoning can cause memory loss.”
Memory loss. Memory loss. Hmmm. What’s that? Oh, yes, memory loss! (Check.)
Just kidding. I can well remember the night a gas leak was first suspected. Three or so weeks back, I was out on the back veranda again, chatting with a young London couple and a young backpacker from Australia.
One of them asked, “Can you smell that?”
I said, “No, what?” My nose has been broken so man times I can’t smell a thing.
“Smells like rotten eggs.”
“It’s gas,” said another. “Leaking gas.”
“Holy shit!” said a third.
From “Silent shadow : silent killer”: “Carbon monoxide has no taste, color or odor, and can be breathed in over a short or long time without you ever knowing that it is present.”
Suppliers add a rotten egg scent to signal that harmful gas vapors are loose in the air. Until that night, no one had complained about it. Except for the Danes, and they had pointed their fingers at me! Those damn Danes!
I immediately informed Gabby, who wrinkled her brow and said she had been having headaches for months.
A few days later, the owner — of the business, not the building — who lives in Switzerland, paid a short visit with his wife, whom he had met here at the hostel. He’s Mexican-born and very dashing. She’s Parisian and very lovely. They both look like movie stars. I like movie stars. But, at that present time, for this particular precarious predicament, what the place needed was a GLS — a Gas-Leak Specialist.
Hostels are wonderfully inexpensive because they’re run on the cheap. A buck saved here, a buck saved there. Some bad comes with good. Life is a two-sided coin.
Shortly after his arrival, the owner of the hostel business (not the building) smeared soap suds from a cloth on the gas pipes in and around the boiler, watching for bubbles to arise, exposing the leak. Unable to detect one, the dashing pair dashed on their way — they were on vacation — the scent of leaking gas still in the air.
The task and glory of finding the leak fell upon the shoulders of Rodreigo, the daytime receptionist/nighttime musician. Several days went by without success. Then one morning on bended knee, he leaned an ear down to listen.
“Sssssssssss!”
The sssss-hissing sound was coming from a puncture in a very thin pipe on the ground by the kitchen door. He smeared soap on it and the bubbling suds billowed up as if it were a boiling mud pot in Yellowstone National Park. You had to see it to believe it! Caught on film, it surely would have been a huge hit on YouTube. Rodreigo covered the leak with a wet towel. Ole!
A professional Gas-Leak Specialist was contracted to replace the punctured pipe. While doing so, he told Gabby a story about another leak he had recently fixed. After leaving the premises upon completion of his task, according to the specialist, the gentleman residing there had lit himself a cigar and — boom! — one of the walls exploded outward in flames, leaving a major peep-hole in his bedroom. Fumes from the gas leak had seeped into the paint on the wall.
But, anyway, back to the hostel here . . .
So all’s well, right? Perhaps, perhaps not. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I can’t write. I can’t walk but for a few short steps at a time. When I’m not resting in my bunk, I’m resting on the one “comfortable” chair on the back veranda.
Gabby has told me more than once: Everyone else is okay! — though, she herself experienced headaches many days after the leak was fixed. (But, then again, perhaps the headaches were caused by me! That could very well be!)
I, in rebuttal, have replied: Most everyone else stays for a couple of days or so. I’ve been here for four straight months. Most everyone else takes in the sights, so they’re out and about. I’ve been staying inside, day in and day out, writing and typing away at the computer here. I rarely leave the place.
A couple of nights ago I came out from resting in my room for a bite to eat in the kitchen. “Are you okay?” she asked. She, too, now is concerned about my health.
I lied and said I was.
First thing the next morning, gazing at me with deep concern, she asked, “You want me to take you to the Red Cross?”
I told her there was a VA medical center in La Jolla and that I was going to take the bus there in the next couple of days.
“I have business to do in Tijuana,” she said. “I will drive you to the border.”
From Googling again: “In many cases, the symptoms may wear off within a short period.”
Good to hear, comforting to know!
“However, in some cases the effects are permanent, particularly in the case of brain damage.”
This, I must admit, is worrisome. When you’re down and out, you get through each day thinking to yourself that you’ll get out of the mess you’ve got yourself into — somehow, someway. There are still opportunities out there, you tell yourself, if you can just hang in there and brave it out.
But with brain damage, well, you have no options but one: being bused to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin rallies.
4 Comments | air pollution, Dan Valentine, Health care, Mexico, Travel | Tagged: Clean Air, Dan Valentine, Ensenada, Health care, Mexico, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Another press release that will have the climate change critics pulling their hair, from Great Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change about the Carbon Reduction Commitment plan (CRC):
50 days for businesses to register for carbon cutting scheme (Press Release)
With just 50 days to go until the end of registration for the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC), Greg Barker is calling on the remaining organisations to register now.
Currently 1229 of the organisations required to register have done so.
Launched in April 2010 the CRC requires large public and private sector organisations to register with the Environment Agency by 30th September 2010.
Greg Barker, Energy and Climate Change Minister, said;
“This new Coalition Government wants to boost energy efficiency in business because we know that saving energy saves money. The CRC will encourage significant savings through greater energy efficiency and importantly will make carbon a boardroom issue for many large organisations.
My message to businesses today is to register now. I understand the original complexity of the scheme may have deterred some organisations and I want to hear suggestions as to how we can make the scheme simpler in the future.”
With just 50 days to go until the end of registration for the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC), Greg Barker is calling on the remaining organisations to register now. The Minister visited Westminster Fire Station this month to meet fire fighters and see some of the measures recently installed to improve the station’s energy efficiency.
The London Fire Brigade is one organisation that has registered for the CRC. Energy efficiency projects put in place by the Brigade have led to savings of £260,000 in 2009/10 and over £1 million since the Brigade started focusing on the need to be greener. Despite the organisation growing overall carbon emissions on their buildings are down by over 18% on 1990s levels.
Greg Barker visited Westminster Fire Station this month to meet fire fighters and see some of the measures recently installed to improve the station’s energy efficiency. Chairman and Leader of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority Councillor Brian Coleman AM, FRSA, said:
“This isn’t just about protecting the environment, it makes excellent business sense. Last year we saved the taxpayer over a quarter of a million pounds by making our fire stations greener and reducing our energy bills.”
The CRC will help to ensure that organisations play their full role in contributing to the UK’s emissions reductions of at least 34% on 1990 levels by 2020 through improved energy efficiency.
Find out more about CRC on the DECC website
Imagine that: Saving energy both reduces carbon emissions and saves money.
1 Comment | air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, Environmental protection, Europe, Green Politics, Science, Technology | Tagged: air pollution, Carbon Cutting, Climate change, Environmental protection, Government, Great Britain, Green Energy, Green Politics, History, Science, Technology | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
From the same woman who gave us the brilliant “The Story of Stuff” a while back, a new film that says cap-and-trade policies are destructing and not to be trusted. What do you think?
I think it’s a great explanatory piece, despite my disagreements with her policy. It’s probably a great film to use in economics class, yes?
4 Comments | air pollution, Economics, History | Tagged: air pollution, Cap-and-Trade, Clean Air, Economics, Story of Stuff | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Maybe “emptiness” would be a better description.
Carbon dioxide’s greenhouse gas functions were discovered in the 19th century. The physics are beyond dispute by rational people.
But that doesn’t stop the hard-core denialists from searching for a way to deny the undeniable. Anthony Watts hosts a guest post from a guy who says that because the atmosphere is complex, the physics of global warming do not apply.
The guest poster is Willis Eschenbach. His argument? Well, rivers don’t run straight to the sea; they meander. Ergo, water doesn’t run downhill in a complex system. Consequently, no global warming. In another place he argues that humans are not metal, therefore, no global warming.
I mean — sweet Mother of Pearl! — this guy even denies the existence of the Army Corps of Engineers, and river straightening:
The results of changes in such a flow system are often counterintuitive. For example, suppose we want to shorten the river. Simple physics says it should be easy. So we cut through an oxbow bend, and it makes the river shorter … but only for a little while. Soon the river readjusts, and some other part of the river becomes longer. The length of the river is actively maintained by the system. Contrary to our simplistic assumptions, the length of the river is not changed by our actions.
No wonder they place all their bets on stealing e-mails from scientists. Somebody show that man the South Platte River through Denver, Colorado, or the Los Angeles River through Los Angeles, or the Mississippi from Arkansas to the Gulf. Somebody give that man a paddle!
Here are a couple of clues: First, water always runs downhill — capillary action being the exception. Eschenbach doesn’t propose capillary action as a driver of river meandering. Any hydrologist will tell you, however, that even a meandering river runs downhill. Second, human beings don’t conduct heat like metal blocks. Even a dead human won’t conduct heat like a copper block, but especially a living human will radiate heat away through several different paths, so that heating the feet of a human will not cause a concomitant rise in temperature of the head. But, heck, if you soak the human’s head in hot water, it won’t warm like a block of steel, either. The examples offered in this piece get pushed past the brink of absurdity. It’s impossible for me to believe that Eschenbach — or Watts — fails to understand the physics so greatly. I can only imagine that they are driven by a fanatic devotion to an idea of the result they hope to see, and that blinds them to the errors they make.
Finally, water’s flow, downhill or up with capillary action, doesn’t negate global warming. Human conductivity affects warming not at all, also.
(No, “constructal theory” doesn’t have much to do with it. Constructal theory generally doesn’t apply to atmospheric conditions, since the air is, technically, not alive, but a dynamic fluid system already highly evolved for these purposes. Even for those cases in which contructal ideas apply to non-living systems, constructal theory does not claim that laws of physics are suspended or held in abeyance, as Eschenbach claims at Watts’s blog. The idea of constructal theory is that systems not in equilibrium, will, over time, figure out (evolve) more efficient means to get into equilibrium. This has nothing to do with the fact of CO2 acting as a greenhouse gas. Constructal theory would only suggest that, over time, the atmosphere would develop systems to get heat distributed better despite CO2, which means that warming would not be held in abeyance at all, but spread out further and farther.)
Watts is already hot that I posted science links at his place on another post. Go see what other commenters can get away with. Can the camel’s nose of real science push into the WUWT tent?
Share the lightness:
5 Comments | air pollution, chemistry, Climate change, climate_change, denialism, Global warming, Green Politics, Paranoia, Physics, Rampant stupidity, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Tagged: chemistry, Climate change, CO2, Constructal Theory, Physics, Rampant stupidity, Research, Science, Voodoo science, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Kids dressing up as adults are cute.
Adults dressing up as things they are not can be entertaining at a masquerade. It’s generally pretty ugly when they dress up as things they are not, for purposes of deception.
Joe Carter, the superstar blogger of evangelical Christians, posted at First Things, pretending to be upset that Democrats and others who work to control and ameliorate global warming, are missing the boat (so to speak) by not complaining about air pollution from ships, especially super-sized cargo ships.
(Even the title of the thing is offensive, either in or out of context: “Sink a ship, save a planet.” Ah, the humor of the conservative, reality- and humor-challenged. I’m sure al Quaeda would be happy to oblige Carter and the headline writers.)
Carter thinks he’s caught environmentalists in some sort of hypocritical stance, worrying about global warming and urging clean air everywhere but from the ships that bring us oil: ‘If you’re so gosh-darn concerned about global warming, why not worry about the pollution from ships, smarty-pants?’ Joe laments.
You’d think he’d have bothered to Google the issue first, before pretending he’s the only one who noticed.
Joe wrote:
Changing the emissions regulations on the shipping industry seems like a modest, commonsense step toward reducing air pollution. So why doesn’t it get more political attention? Why do hypothetical concerns about potential catastrophic problems always trump those that are causing massive deaths right now?
With all the focus on man-made global warming, its easy to overlook the fact that man-made pollution is already killing millions of people every year.
* * * * * * * *
Imagine the effect we could have on pollution if we spent as much time, energy, and money on solutions that make a difference for other people’s lives rather than those that merely make us feel good about ourselves.
Imagine, indeed. The gall of those environmentalists, warning about global warming but letting their friends in the shipping business get off scot-free, no?
Reality is that the liberal environmentalists and federal regulators were on the issue earlier, sponsoring legislation to deal with the issue — and President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency got an agreement earlier this year to go at least part-way to resolving the problems. EPA monitored air pollution from ships from long ago — at this 2001 EPA meeting in San Francisco, Fischbeck offered a .pdf PowerPoint summary of EPA’s work, the problems of air pollution from ships, the strategies to control the pollution and the benefits of such control.
Several Members of Congress introduced legislation to fix marine air pollution in the last Congress, and hearings were held on bills that didn’t quite make it into law. These efforts were follow-on to an international treaty to control marine air pollution; according to the Congressional Research Service’s explanation of the bills and the issue:
In 1997, the United States and most countries signed an international agreement known as MARPOL Annex VI, setting extremely modest controls on air pollution from ships. The agreement did not enter into force until 2005, and the United States took until July 21, 2008, to enact legislation to implement it (P.L. 110-280). Negotiations to strengthen Annex VI accelerated in 2008, however, and discussions regarding GHG emissions have also begun. While awaiting congressional action and international agreement, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), port cities, and states have begun to act on their own. In the 110th Congress, legislation was introduced (S. 1499 / H.R. 2548) to require EPA to dramatically strengthen ship emission standards under the Clean Air Act. S. 1499 was reported, but no further action was taken.
I suppose it’s too much to expect hard-core rightists to pay attention to international news, but marine air pollution is a topic of international concern, obviously indicated by the MARPOL treaty, but with a lot of other indicators for anyone who chooses to look and study the issue.
Ships pour out great quantities of pollutants into the air in the form of sulphur and nitrogen oxides.
The emissions from ships engaged in international trade in the seas surrounding Europe – the Baltic, the North Sea, the north-eastern part of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea – were estimated to have been 2.3 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 3.3 million tonnes of nitrogen oxides a year in 2000.
In contrast to the progress in reducing emissions from land-based sources, shipping emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides are expected to continue increasing by 40-50 per cent up to 2020. In both cases, by 2020 the emissions from international shipping around Europe will have surpassed the total from all land-based sources in the 27 EU member states combined.
Joe Carter is right that air pollution from ships should be of great concern. He would be wise to listen to those like former U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis, who sponsored a bill in the 110th Congress to fight marine air pollution.
And, now that we’ve established that cleaning up marine air pollution is a good idea, and the liberals and environmentalists and Obama administration are already on the job, wouldn’t it also be great if the conservatives who look at these issues, too, listen to these same people when they warn about the dangers of global warming, and of the dangers of failing to act soon to stop it?
Joe Carter identified a problem, and he’s discovered that the environmentalists and Democrats he wished to ding for not paying enough attention instead were there before him, and resolved much of the difficulty.
Anyone want to bet whether Carter will give credit to Obama, EPA and the Democrats in Congress for solving the problems?
3 Comments | air pollution, Environmental protection, Government, History, Legislation, Regulation, Science, U.S. Marines, U.S. Senate | Tagged: air pollution, Congress, EPA, Global warming, History, Marine Air Pollution, Regulation, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Associate Press put a team of five reporters on the e-mails purloined from the Hadley climate science group in England. AP sought advice on interpreting the messages from other scientists involved in ethical science issues.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only group that has gone through the entire mass to see what is really shown — more than a million words, the AP story estimated.
Veteran climate issue reporter Seth Borenstein wrote up the story: Scientists in the heat of research and interpretation, on deadline with government policy makers, often attacked unfairly — one received death threats for his work on climate change. Under those conditions, one might understand that the scientists were defensive and rude, in private, about their critics. One of the critics harassed scientists with repeated FOI requests, then didn’t use the data. In one case, a critic published a paper based on bad data — what the critics accused the scientists of doing.
But in the end, there was no pattern of data fixing. Independent reviews today confirm that independently-generated studies confirm the warming the scientists wrote about.
Of course, that doesn’t stop the hecklers of the scientists from complaining, either about the science or the way it’s reported. Rather than deal with the material AP reported, for example, warming blogger Anthony Watts attacked the reporter who wrote the story, complaining that he is “too close” to the story, since he seems to have been covering the story long enough that his e-mail appears in the purloined e-mails.
‘You can’t report the news because you know too much,’ is Watts’s complaint.
In the e-mail cited, Seth Borenstein wrote to some of the world’s best scientists in the field and asked their opinions about a paper making some contrary claims.
To Watts, seeking information from the experts is beyond the pale. He calls it an ethical infraction.
Watts is unbound by such ethical rules, however, and so can make up stuff like this with abandon. Watts’ charge is hooey, foul play, and stupid. In the headline to his post, Watts wrote, “AP’s Seth Borenstein is just too damn cozy with the people he covers – time for AP to do something about it.”
That’s right, AP — it’s time Borenstein got a promotion for doing the legwork, honestly, that critics of the science have refused to do. Borenstein’s reporting is important. The story goes beyond mere repeating of press releases, beyond the mere “he-said/he-said” norm. Borenstein, in unemotional, clear and cool terms, indicted the critics of warming, by factually reporting the events. Give that man and his team a Pulitzer Prize.
Why shouldn’t reporters go to the experts? Why shouldn’t they ask the opinions of all sides in a science debate?
Think about it for a moment: Watts’s complaint is that Borenstein sought fairness in reporting on Watts’s side’s claim. Because Borenstein refused to show the bias Watts wants, Watts went after Borenstein.
Could there be a more clear and dramatic illustration of why the scientists’ ire is raised by such silly criticism?
Watts quotes at length from the Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles, slyly implying by doing so that Borenstein violated the rules somewhere. Not so.
Watts worries about “getting too cozy with sources.” Read his blog. Watts prefers to be the source — but he also reports on the debate.
Watts would do well to read that AP ethical statement again, and take it to heart.
His charges are groundless, scurrilous in the light of the AP team’s going to great lengths to be fair to all sides. Watts and other critics bank on people being shocked that scientists get angry. Watts and his colleagues have campaigned across the web, on television and in print, to have these scientists tarred and feathered, and their science dismissed — though there is not handful of feathers to weigh against the mountains of evidence the scientists accumulated and published over the past 50 years.
Do not take my word for it. Read the AP story. Read Watts’s rant. Read the e-mails, if you wish (you can find them from my opinionated take on the flap). Check with the scientists you know and trust on their views of the science done and reported.
I won a couple of minor investigative journalism awards in college. I have been a member of the Society of Professional Journalists off and on since 1974 (not much since I quit doing that stuff full time). I have worked with some of the best investigative journalists and Congressional investigators in my duties with the Senate. I’ve been a member of the FOIA committees in Utah and Maryland. I’ve lobbied in three states for freedom of information. I know a little bit about investigative reporting and fairness. And yes, IAAL.
Borenstein’s piece is solid and good. In light of the firestorm Watts hopes to bring down on it, Borenstein’s article is a shining example of high ethics in journalism. It deserves your reading.
If the critics had data denying warming, or denying human causation of warming, why are they hiding it so well? If they have the data to prove the scientists are in error, why not publish it, instead of sniping at a wire service reporter who merely tells the story?
Critics don’t have the data to contest the hard work of the scientists. They don’t have the data to make a case against either warming or human causation. And now we all know.
Post Script: Um, and , you know, it’s not like Borenstein hasn’t done some stuff over the years to make it look like he’s been on Watts’s side: Stoat, Mooney’s Intersection, Island of Doubt. Watts’ fit may put a gloss on Borenstein’s work that wasn’t there to begin with.
Help others investigate the facts:
14 Comments | Accuracy, air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Environmental protection, Ethics, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Political Smear, Politics, Science | Tagged: Accuracy, Anthony Watts, Associated Press, Climate change, Ethics, Global warming, Journalism, Purloined e-mails, Science, Seth Borenstein | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It’s a point that the denialists just don’t get. If Gore were wrong, if warming isn’t occurring, or if the warming were found to be part of a deeper cycle and all we need to do is hang on for another five or six years until the cycle shifts, that would be great news.
No one would complain about a study that actually showed that.
But no study shows that. And the e-mails that somebody purloined from an English research center, if the worst allegations about scientists were true, can’t affect warming. In fact, as I understand it, the chart that was “doctored” got its new, non-tree-ring data from actual thermometer readings — which, of course, show warming.
Worse, the chart’s predictions for following years turn out to be low! Warming is outpacing some of the pessimists’ predictions.
Every day, I pine for the global warming deniers to be proved right. I loved the old world – of flying to beaches wherever we want, growing to the skies, and burning whatever source of energy came our way. I hate the world to come that I’ve seen in my reporting from continent after continent – of falling Arctic ice shelves, of countries being swallowed by the sea, of vicious wars for the water and land that remains. When I read the works of global warming deniers like Nigel Lawson or Ian Plimer, I feel a sense of calm washing over me. The nightmare is gone; nothing has to change; the world can stay as it was.
But then I go back to the facts. However much I want them to be different, they sit there, hard and immovable. Nobody disputes that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, like a blanket holding in the Sun’s rays. Nobody disputes that we are increasing the amount of those greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And nobody disputes that the world has become considerably hotter over the past century. (If you disagree with any of these statements, you’d fail a geography GCSE).
Alas, there is no significant or credible evidence that warming is not occurring, nor that we humans are not playing a huge role.
So, in Copenhagen where the world’s leaders and other policy makers are meeting this week to discuss the situation, there will be no champagne to toast an end to global warming.
That would be good news. It’s not the news we get.
Also see:
1 Comment | air pollution, Climate change, climate_change, Cost of Green, Disasters, Environmental protection, Green Politics, Politics, Public health, Science | Tagged: Climate change, Climategate, Copenhagen, Global warming, Government, Green Politics, Politics, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Then Vice President Al Gore campaigning in Des Moines, Iowa, November 25, 1999.
Among the more amusing about-faces in conservative knee-jerk politics is conservative criticism of Al Gore for being a successful investor.
No, I’m not kidding.
Back in April, Gore testified to a House Energy and Commerce Committee in April — one of the committees where Gore was a shining star when he was a Member — and he ran into a challenge from Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blakburn who tried to play bad cop in grilling Gore about his investment work. Since leaving politics Gore has worked to put his money where his advocacy is, backing green industries and energy efficiency projects. Blackburn is a Republican representing Tennessee’s 7th District. Blackburn appears not to understand how cross-examination works.
In most discussions I’ve had on warming issues over the past two months, advocates for doing nothing almost always bring up Gore as as “profiteer” for investing in green businesses.
It’s as if conservatives and Republicans have forgotten how business works in a free-enterprise system, and they think that free enterprise is tantamount to communism.
T. Boone Pickens used to be a favorite witness for Republicans to call at Congressional hearings. Pickens was, and still is, a staunch advocate of free enterprise, and he advocates a lot less regulation than most Democrats want. Then Pickens’s investments, especially his vulture investments in dying companies where he’d sell off the assets and put the company out of existence, were touted by Republicans as indication that Pickens is a genius.
A hard look at Gore’s investments shows him to be nothing more than a free-enterprise advocate who leads the way in green investments. He has made huge gambles in businesses that warming skeptics claim won’t work — and his investments have tended to pay off, to the great consternation of warming do-nothings who understand markets.
This story in the New York Times suggests just how well Gore has done, and how much his leadership in investing might benefit us. It’s worth bookmarking for your next discussion on what we should do about global warming — because you know somebody will try to make it about Al Gore. It just galls the heck out of conservatives and anti-science folks that Gore is right so often, and that he is such a practitioner of the Scout Law.
Anti-pollution is good business. Reducing the dumping of poisons into the air and water makes sense, and it makes a better economy in the long run. Sometimes it makes a better economy in the short run, too. Gore stepped into the marketplace, a very capitalist act. His investments paid off, demonstrating that markets do work, and demonstrating that green business is smart business. What are Republicans and conservatives thinking in taking after Gore’s business success?
Oh — Boone Pickens? He used to have an office in Trammell Crow Tower when our offices at Ernst & Young LLP were a floor or so away. We shared elevator rides many times, and he is in person as gracious and smart as he appeared in those Congressional hearings years ago.
His money today? He’s investing in wind power, because he thinks we need to act now to reduce dependency on oil imports.
Maybe Republican anti-green politics is coming home to roost.
4 Comments | air pollution, Business, Business Ethics, Capitalism, Climate change, climate_change, Free market economics, Global warming, Politics, Science | Tagged: air pollution, Al Gore, Climate change, Global warming, Politics, Rampant stupidity, Reason, Wind Power | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Here’s another example of where historians show their value in science debates.
Naomi Oreskes delivered this lecture a few years ago on denialism in climate science. Among other targets of her criticism-by-history is my old friend Robert Jastrow. I think her history is correct, and her views on the Marshall Institute and denial of climate change informative in the minimum, and correct on the judgment of the facts.
You’ll recognize some of the names: Jastrow, Frederick Seitz, S. Fred Singer, and William Nierenberg.
Oreskes details the intentional political skewing of science by critics of the serious study of climate warming. It’s just under an hour long, but well worth watching. Dr. Oreskes is Professor of History in the Science Studies Program at the University of California at San Diego. The speech is titled “The American Denial of Global Warming.”
If Oreskes is right — and I invite you to check her references thoroughly, to discover for yourself that her history and science are both solid — Lord Monckton is a hoaxster. Notice especially the references after the 54 minute mark to the tactic of claiming that scientists are trying to get Americans to give up our sovereignty.
Nothing new under the sun.
“Global warming is here, and there are almost no communists left,” Oreskes said.
Nudge your neighbor:
46 Comments | Accuracy, air pollution, Business Ethics, Capturing history, Clean Air Act, Climate change, climate_change, Conservation, Cost of Green, denialism, Environmental protection, Evidence, Fairness Doctrine, Free press, Global warming, History, History of Science, How do we know what we know, Junk science, Newspapers, oceans, Physics, Politics, Polling and Public Opinion, Research, Science, War on Science | Tagged: Accuracy, Climate change, denialism, Fred Singer, Global warming, Hoaxes, Naomi Oreskes, Perspectives on Ocean Science, Robert Jastrow, Science, Tobacco Institute, Tobacco Strategy, University of California-San Diego, Voodoo science, War on Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the archives for the air pollution category.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
EPA posts greenhouse gas reporting requirements
June 29, 2010What’s that racket, that squealing, that ‘stuck’ pig noise?
Space-filling model of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) - Wikimedia image. Sulfur hexafluoride is one of the most powerful greenhouse gases known, with "global warming potential" 22,800 times that of CO2. EPA proposes to measure SF6 emissions as a first step toward reducing emissions. Warming deniers propose to stop the regulations.
EPA published regulations for measuring greenhouse gases as part of its CO2 emission regulatory program — and the noise is the reaction of the anti-warmists.
Here’s EPA’s press release — notice the links to longer explanations, and note especially that the regulations are not final yet, but are instead open for public comment.
These regulations are those complained about and proposed to be stopped by critics of the campaign to stop global warming. Alaska’s pro-warming Sen. Lisa Murkowski introduced a resolution to stop these regulations, with the support of junk science lobbyists including the National Center for Policy Research. Fortunately, on June 10 the Senate voted 47-53 to reject a motion to consider the resolution, S. J. Res. 26, “A joint resolution disapproving a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to the endangerment finding and the cause or contribute findings for greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”
Both of Texas’s senators were suckered by the junk science. Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison both co-sponsored the losing resolution. Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott filed suit to stop the regulations. Abbott’s opponent in the 2010 elections, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, probably the only one of these Texans who might understand sulfur hexafluoride’s role as a pollutant, criticized the suit and urged Abbott to spend his time protecting Texas oil fields from oil company sabotage.
Help control emissions from climate “skeptics,” and spread the good word:
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.