Over the last year, millions of people around the world have felt first-hand the impacts of the growing climate crisis. From devastating flooding in Thailand to historic drought in Texas, global warming has moved from an abstraction to a dangerous new reality. Here in the United States, 82 percent of Americans say that they've experienced a natural disaster or extreme weather event first-hand.
Yet, despite a few notable exceptions, the mainstream media has failed to connect the dots between this string of extreme weather events and global warming. Instead, coverage of climate change has dropped precipitously. A recent report by Media Matters for America found out that nightly news coverage on the major networks decreased 72 percent between 2009 and 2011. The Sunday shows, traditionally seen as forums for discussing the "important issues" of the day, have all spent more time covering Donald Trump than they have climate change.
If the mainstream media won't connect the dots, then it's up to the rest of us to try. This Saturday, 350.org's global network of volunteers, activists, and organizations are hosting over 1,000 events in more than 100 countries to "connect the dots" between extreme weather and climate change.
Firefighters in New Mexico will hold posters with dots in a forest ravaged by wildfires, while divers in the Marshall Islands take a dot underwater to their dying coral reefs. On glaciers in the Alps, Andes, and Sierras, climbers will unfurl dots on melting glaciers with the simple message: "I'm Melting." Villagers in Northeastern Kenya will create dots to show how ongoing drought is killing their crops, while city-dwellers in Rio de Janeiro hold dots where mudslides from unusually heavy rains wiped out part of their neighborhood. The list goes on.
Here at 350 HQ, we'll be doing our best to collect photos and videos from the events, edit them together into slideshows and b-roll in record time, get them moving across social media, and push content out to mainstream news networks. If we're successful, Saturday will be another big step forward in waking the world up to the urgent threat of the climate crisis.
It's this type of online-to-offline, new-to-traditional media mash-up that I think holds some promise for those of us who are struggling to move climate change from a low public priority to a top-tier political concern. We'll never have the big advertising budgets of the fossil fuel industry, but we can assemble enough cell-phone cameras, Flickr feeds, and YouTube videos to show people how climate change is a clear and present danger rather than some nuisance for the future.
Over the last few years coordinating our communications here at 350.org, I've seen how citizen-powered journalism can help push the mainstream media to cover the climate crisis. The day before our first global day of action in 2009, we got a skype call from our organizers in Ethiopia who told us that they were about to have a march with 15,000 school children in the streets of Addis Ababa to call for action on climate change, but that they didn't have anyone to film the demonstration and that there weren't any international media outlets with cameras in the city. A few Skype calls later, my colleague Adam tracked down a friend of a friend of a friend who happened to be in Addis with a camera. She quickly hopped on her bicycle, filmed the rally, found high-speed Internet at a hotel bar (ordered a drink so she could use it for free), uploaded the footage to us in New York, we cut it into b-roll in iMovie, sent it over to CNN, and they put it on the air a few hours later.
In 2010, we turned to artists like Thom Yorke and Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada to help get the message across. They designed images large enough to be photographed by satellite and we brought together thousands of people to form the pictures on the ground. Imagine the logistics involved in organizing hundreds of people to form a "human river" in the desert outside Santa Fe while timing the whole thing to coincide with a satellite flying overhead at over 100 mph -- then times that by 12 different events across the planet. The art worked: outlets around the world picked up the pictures and ran with them.
Last August, during the White House sit-ins against the Keystone XL pipeline, we only began to get media coverage after days of our own photographers and videographers cranking out photos and videos of everyday citizens being led away in handcuffs. Now, hardly a day goes by without an article about the pipeline and the latest political ploy to revive that zombie.
This Saturday will be a unique challenge. It's been just over a month since we sent out the invitation for Climate Impacts Day. We're still finding typos and glitches on the website, scrambling to get together updated press lists, and find enough hours in the day to coordinate more than 1,000 events spanning nearly every continent (still working on an Antarctic action). But all across the world people have picked up the theme and are organizing with incredible creativity. As it turns out, in many places around the world, people already deeply understand between the floods that wiped out their village or the drought that killed their crop and the pollution that the fossil fuel industry is spewing out day after day.
They've connected the dots. We'll see if the mainstream media can too.
Follow Jamie Henn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/agent350
Global Warming- Science - The New York Times
Climate change news, comment and analysis | Environment | The ...
When veganism comes up, people often say that there’s no need to worry about eating animals because animals don’t think or feel. But do we have thoughts and feelings for animals? Millions of dollars is spent yearly to take care of them. Thousands are adopted yearly from shelters. Hundreds of videos posted on YouTube is a testament to the love people have, worldwide, for animals. Even meat processors and factory farmers have feelings for animals. We know this because don’t allow live webcams or any type of photographic audit of their facilities. They know that what happens behind their slaughterhouse doors is not something that anyone should witness, let alone, experience.
To learn for yourself if animals have thoughts and feelings, I encourage you to watch the documentary called EARTHLINGS. It’s on YouTube. It is excellent. Each viewer will come up with their own conclusion. Each person will know how to proceed. And their decision will be an informed one.
The only net contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions from raising animals are 1) gut bacteria inside cattle producing methane and 2) CO2 released as forests and grasslands are converted to farmland. However, the entire contribution from land conversion is 1/10 the contribution from burning fossil fuels and methane (http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html), while 20x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, is about 1/200 the concentration (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html).
The reason I personally advocate a more plant-based diet isn't due to global warming–it's due to the energy pyramid. Eating plants can support ~10x the population of eating cattle from a sheer energy perspective, reducing the need for farmland and reducing the need to clear the forests that house most of the terrestrial biodiversity.
This is blatantly false, as has been pointed out to netdr time after time after time (which explains why he keeps getting banned over and over and over).
See here, for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13719510
"[A]n extra year has made that trend significant at the 95% level which is the traditional threshold that statisticians have used for many years."
we may
consider the platoii/netdr INCOME OPTIMIZATION problem:
Assume for convenience (at the 95% confidence level that) that:
a) Platoii/netdr gets paid per post, but only for denialist comments about climate change;
b) Platoii/netdr tries to maximize his earnings/effort ratio;
c) Beyond a) and b), platoii/netdr lacks all constraints: scientific, moral, ethical, or otherwise.
This general unconcern includes whether he is being highly counter-productive for his funders, as an obvious poster boy for professional AGW denial trolling on HuffPo.
d) Most regulars + HuffPo's moderators now recognize him as a professional troll.
Ergo, though point d) may be least probable among the above, platoii/netdr still knows that:
1) Short, incessantly repetitive lies about climate change earn him more money, while costing him the least effort;
2) Short, incessantly repetitive lies about climate change also draw more attention from climate change regulars and HuffPo moderators, and thus are the most likely to get him banned;
3) Frequent banning loses him income, due to extended down time setting up new ISPs;
4) For reasons, perhaps best known to his own ego, platoii/netdr seems incapable of successfully becoming someone else, or at least sufficiently disguising himself as such.
Simple linear regression analysis shows no optimal solution for platoii/netdr's problem.
BTW, among platoii's various guises have been:
netdr
NGC2623
HoosierDaddy25
leesburg-larry (banned twice)
neptune2 (banned twice)
Ptolemy101
Texas-Titan
texas-husker
caesar200
zillaii
falconiia
ptolemyii
Temperatures have been flat this century.
Ocean heat isn’t increasing
Large tornadoes are flat to down.
No upward trend in droughts.
No increase in floods.
Hurricanes are below normal
There are no studies that confirm that extreme weather of any kind is increasing.
"Temperatures have been flat this century.
Ocean heat isn’t increasing"
Oh really? NASA measured more heat entering the system than leaving. Thermodynamics tells us that it is warming. Some heat goes into the atmosphere but most of it is absorbed by the oceans where it is more difficult to measure.
Nice try netdr.
Neither ocean heat nor atmospheric heat has increased since 2005, which is impossible if CAGW is going to happen.
Could you take a whack at actually refuting the science rather than simply asserting that it's all a "hoax" and that this has been "proven"?
THSAonline.org has a nice little piece about droughts in just the last 300 years (which, as you know, is a geologically minimal length of time).
"Droughts have been recorded as a problem in Texas since Spaniards explored the area. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca found a population of soil tillers near the site of present-day Presidio, where it had not rained for two years. Regarding the white man as a god, they begged him to tell the sky to rain."
BTW: There has been no significant warming per Phil Jones so lack of warming is officially a trend.
1. Extreme weather events are, by definition, rare. If AGW shifts the entire probability distribution function (the bell curve) of a weather event upward, even by only a slight amount, the effect on the probability of EXTREME events is nevertheless very large. This is explained better in this article (check out the graphs and you'll see what I mean):
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/extremely-hot/
Because of this 'multiplier effect on extreme events', scientists now estimate that AGW increased the likelihood of the July 2010 Russian heatwave (which killed 50,000 people) by five to eight TIMES.
2. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Sea Ice melt has reduced the temperature difference between the Arctic and Lower Latitudes. This has had the effect of making the Jet Stream weaker. When the Jet Stream weakens, it starts meandering more. It drives higher up into the Arctic than before, then dives deeper down toward the equator than before. It also tends to stall over certain places longer. The result is that the Jet Stream is now more likely to plunge below your latitude and stall, bringing you cold Arctic weather for longer. Simultaneously, its also now more likely to rise above your latitude and stall, bringing you warm Tropical weather for longer. N America has seen both of these things happen. This video explains it pretty well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAZue6ylZ8&feature=related
http://skepticalscience.com/levitus-2012-global-warming-heating-oceans.html
7% of what you are talking about is atmosphere, and if you account properly for El Nino/La Nina events, the warming of the atmosphere has continued in the last 17 years at the same pace as the previous 30 years, as shown in this article:
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/04/24/the-lack-of-recent-warming-canard-no-cigar-but-thanks-for-playing/
As for extreme weather, I'll leave that up to your readers to decide for themselves. Does your comment actually square with our experience of the last few years? I suspect that for most of your readers that's simply untrue. But, thanks for playing, Plato. We can always use a little classical gas here.
You are wrong. Climate heating trend has been demonstrated since the 80's.
And where are the dots that connect your heating to human influence?
As Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) demonstrate, when El Niños, volcanic eruptions and other such influences are controlled for global warming has steadily continued to rise in the 21st century:
"[A]ll five data sets show statistically significant warming even for the time span from 2000 to the present."
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/
ddpalmer: "And where are the dots that connect your heating to human influence?"
Start here:
"Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
http://spiedigitallibrary.org/proceedings/resource/2/psisdg/5543/1/164_1
Hope this helps.
Thanks George Soros for funding us!
Love.
Huffington Post
This post displays such shocking ignorance on every level I don't know where to begin.
The circle is complete.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/03/has-the-crutem4-data-been-fiddled-with/#more-62667
Hadcrut4 from 1979 = .016 degC yr.
BEST (land only) = .027 degC yr.
Hadcrut3 = .014 deg C yr
GISSTEMP LOTI = .016 deg C yr
UAH LT global = .013 degC yr.
RSS LT land = .018 deg C yr.
Since the satellite measurements started in 1979, I took the trend in all the indices from 1979.
So, Jerry Seinfeld, show us where they've altered measured temperatures to fit a model.
Or maybe you're passing on a little fib.
The danger is that a year or two of "normal" weather will lead the public to think that you've overreacted.
If AGW is true, and it almost certainly is, then the weather-global warming connection will be much clearer a few years down the road.
To watch the documentary online visit:
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/7545/"
There are other forms of energy coming from the sun that isn't observed via "sunspot".
There are also cosmic rays and forces from other stars acting and reacting on/with the earth. Those cosmic rays also affect the sun and the rest of the solar system.
Yeah man, or maybe space aliens.
yeti7: "There are other forms of energy coming from the sun that isn't observed via "sunspot"."
Sunspots are a proxy for solar irradiance, which had remained essentially flat over recent decades while the globe has continued to warm.
Yeti7: "There are also cosmic rays"
Which also don't correlate which global warming over recent decades.
Yeti7: " and forces from other stars acting and reacting on/with the earth."
Really. What "other forces" might those be? Invisible alien warming rays?
Science denier rhetoric is stupefying.
Several points stand out in Orkney's little diatribe.
First, the science. It is extremely strong science that mankind releases some 30 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The smoking gun? The atmospheric CO2 content keeps rising. The amount is consistent with the amount of fossil fuel being burned. Furthermore, the carbon isotope mix in the atmosphere is consistent with fossil fuel carbon isotopes.
Second. The terminology. CAGW is a term finding wider usage in the denier universe. Real scientists do not use the term. It is made up by the fossil fuel PR firms. Ordinary rank and file deniers such as Orkney pick up on the term and try their luck at spreading it around.
Arrogance and ignorance, such a fascinating combination to be found operating in tandem, such as we find in deniers.
http://tinyurl.com/ycb8y8q
Notice that the "Australian" has the emails, but rather than printing them, it distorts the Commissioner's statement in an effort to claim that the researchers were lying about being threatened.
In fact, the University took the email seriously enough to move the scientists to secure locations.
The so called Climate "Scientists" noses grow longer everyday.
All the harmless emails, falsely claimed to be "death threats" by the alarmists are available on the this most excellent blog linked below.
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/
The FOI request was for any and all emails containing "death threats".
ANU could not produce any such emails.
The claims by the Climate "scientists" and ANU were mendacious and the independent referee has so decided, in accordance with Australian Law.
Dear Orkneygal,
Isn't Heartland Institute Global Warming "Expert" Dr. Robert M "Bob" Carter committing facto global warming fraud by misrepresenting increasing global temperature trend lines as flat?*
Isn't that like a climate science scam, a global warming hoax?
If you disagree please provide a scientifically-valid explanation for Bob Carter's gross misrepresentation of scientific data.
Bob Carter is a leader of and/or major contributor to several of the most prominent organizations that are "skeptical" of man-made global warming, including:
* The Heartland Institute
* The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)
* The Science & Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
* The Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
* The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
* The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
Also:
You Orkneygal have indicated that you live in New Zealand - what relationship do you have with Bob Carter's global warming "skeptic" organization the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC)?
Please finally answer these questions instead of continuing to run away from them (often via misleadingly saying you have 'replied' without ever having answered the questions).
[ Que: Orkneygal's continued evasion of addressing Bob Carter's de facto global warming fraud and her relationship to Bob Carter's NZCSC, while misleadingly claiming that she has "responded". ]
------------------
* http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/07/bob_carters_trend_lines.php
The world owes him much for his courageous work.
Does the cutting and pasting you do all day for the Rommulans never bore you?