The Policy Lass

There’s so much gold on them thar climate blogs, whether climate science or denialist/skeptic, that a poor policy lass can hardly keep up! However, there were a few choice tidbits that I wanted to note.

"That's gold, Jerry. Gold!"

I read a lot of blogs, daily and some less often, and here is a round up of my response to some of the climate blogs I follow:

Climate Progress:

CP reports that CNN meteorologist Chad Meyers finally admits that global warming is real and not only that, it’s man made!

Is it caused by man? Yes. Is it 100% caused by man? No. There are other things involved. We are now in the sun spot cycle. We are now in a very hot sun cycle. there are many other things going on. But, yes, a significant portion of this is caused by greenhouse gases keeping heat on the shore, on the land, in the atmosphere that could have escaped without those greenhouse gases, so, yes, it’s warmer. . ..

There is absolutely something going on here for this summer being the hottest and some of the water that we have in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico the hottest ever on record which could cause a pretty significant hurricane season still to come. [emphasis CP’s]

Continue reading →…

Sometimes, you have to laugh or you’ll poke your eyes out with a rusty spork…

I thought that, for fun, I’d do a bit of a summary of posts I found amusing, in the funny or satirical or farcical sense. My top two climate science “skeptic” bloggers, Anthony Watts and Steven McIntyre, provide much material.

Starting off is Anthony Watts, who perhaps has the most chuckle-inducing post up about Congressman Markey’s suggestion that deniers start their own country on the iceberg that recently broke off Greenland, which he labeled “Deniersberg”. I’ll call it “Denialsberggate” because I sense Watts would like to build this up into something mountainous, when it really is just a anthill crack in the sidewalk of life. Continue reading →…

I’ve been waiting for the deniers and skeptics to start backtracking for a while now, given that report after report has exonerated climate scientists like Michael Mann,  and Phil Jones, but it feels like a fool’s errand – bloggers like Anthony Watts , Monckton and newspaper giants like Delingpole keep cranking out the denial like modern-day Neros fiddling while the world boils, burns, bakes and floods and the climate change scientists claim that we’re breaking records.

As Beckett wrote, “We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

Now it seems as if some of those previously mad are tearing off the shades, pulling away the veils, and seeing things as they really are. Are they completely out of the cave and no longer under the lure of shadows?  I doubt it, but there seems to be some movement.   Continue reading →…

For others, it might have been a shake-head, face-palm moment but not for me. Barton obviously gave away his true feelings when he apologized to poor BP over the terrible treatment it has received at the hands of the Obama administration. Boo hoo.

He knows who butters his bread.

Finally a bit of truth, and for that I am appreciative.

Of course, the Republican Party recognize it for what it was and forced Barton to retract, and now he has, but let’s be serious, how can anyone take anything he has said and will say about this crisis  — and global warming — seriously? The man takes more money from big oil than others in the House. I mean, seriously, he actually apologized to BP for his government trying to ensure that BP ponies up to ensure that those affected by the disaster will be compensated — before BP can avoid paying the way that EXXON has done so up in Alaska.

This little escapade is just a perfect illustration — a microcosm — of the problem we face when it comes to getting climate legislation enacted.

Just a quick post about Fred Pearce’s book “The Climate Files” on Climategate and the Guardian podcast interview with him, in which he discusses some of what he sees as the main issues in the whole saga.

First, I was a bit disappointed that the core of the matter wasn’t addressed except tangentially — and to me, the core of the matter is this: do the emails show that climate scientists conspired to pull off a hoax? While he does dismiss this meme, he does play up on many of the denialist talking points.  The CRU emails have been held up as evidence that climate scientists have conspired to withhold data, misrepresent evidence and manipulate the instrumental and proxy records in order to push the false claim that CO2 has caused the climate to warm in an unprecedented and potentially dangerous fashion. That to me is the crux of the matter but Pearce didn’t get around to discussing that in any detail. Continue reading →…

McI has a new post up about the “trick”.

You’d think he’d develop some different material — this bleating on about the “trick” is getting pretty old, but I guess if it feeds the audience (and tip jar) well, why do real science? Besides, there is another trick being played on us all right now — the trick of diversion.

This newest post is all about reputations and damages to them, in which McI defends himself from what he terms “false information”. It’s all about splitting hairs over terminology and semantics. It’s not of any real consequence, but I guess it keeps the troops riled up, angry and willing to fill the tip jar. It keeps people focused on the shells instead of the hand that moves them. Continue reading →…