U.S. corn will be cut dramatically by climate change in coming years, and our biofuels policy might weaken farmers' attempts to adapt, a new Stanford study says.
Add to Britain's winter drought, flooding, as unusual April torrential showers flow over the dried compact soil, failing to refill aquifers, reports Paul Cahalan from the UK's Independent.
Get ready for fiercer droughts and storms, folks -- the salt of the sea is telling the world that climate change is intensifying the global water cycle twice as fast as originally thought, a new study in the journal Science shows, according to Michael Lemonick at Climate Central.
Some nations are carbon cheating. Declining U.S. coal consumption doesn't mean declining carbon emissions if the coal is exported for burning elsewhere, and U.S. carbon bookkeeping needs to reflect that, reports Brian Walsh at TIME magazine.
ALEC, the conservative think tank that uses state legislators to squash U.S. attempts to grow a clean economy, will consider attacking clean energy mandates, too, reports Maria Gallucci at InsideClimate News.
Every day is Earth Day, folks. For more detailed summaries of the above and other climate change items, audio podcasts and texts are available.
Posted on May 1, 2012 by stevieslaw
Justin Gillis reports in the New York Times this morning that climate change dissenters have latched on to the work of Richard S. Lindzen, a Meterology Professor at MIT. Dr. Lindzen’s research supports the theory that the change in cloud formation, as a result of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere, will act to reduce the temperature of the earth—a counterbalancing affect. While nearly all climate scientists disagree with Dr. Lindzen’s assessment—forcing him to publish his most recent work in an obscure Korean journal, it is clear that our general lack of understand about the role of clouds in the atmosphere is a major impediment to climate predictions.
It was, in fact, that great unrecognized climate specialist who said it best, way back in 1969, as:
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds * that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s cloud illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all
Perhaps we could all link hands and sing “Both Sides Now,” as the glaciers melt, the waters rise and much of the planet goes under.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/science/earth/clouds-effect-on-climate-change-is-last-bastion-for-dissenters.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
tackles Lindzen's take and the state of uncertainty about clouds on climate change (excerpts):
"While the scientific majority acknowledges that the lingering uncertainty about clouds plays into the hands of skeptics like Dr. Lindzen, they say that he has gone beyond any reasonable reading of the evidence to provide a dangerous alibi for inaction.
Dr. Lindzen is “feeding upon an audience that wants to hear a certain message, and wants to hear it put forth by people with enough scientific reputation that it can be sustained for a while, even if it’s wrong science,” said Christopher S. Bretherton, an atmospheric researcher at the University of Washington. “I don’t think it’s intellectually honest at all.”
further, "The most elaborate computer programs have agreed on a broad conclusion: clouds are not likely to change enough to offset the bulk of the human-caused warming."
Indeed, we have been able to make important predictions that are coming true despite cloud uncertainties.
Unfortunately, it will probably require huge jumps in the price of food and water to wake up the fossil fuel consumers who have been brainwashed by their suppliers into believing that there is no problem.
Why leave science to scientists when we have such brilliant politicians?