Government retweets

Remember what I said about how every time I think things in our government have reached the absolute nadir, someone just raises the nadir-bar?

Witness the fact that the official Twitter account for the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology just two days ago retweeted a slanted, cherry-picked, and otherwise fallacy-filled climate denialism piece called "Global Temperatures Plunge, Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists" that appeared in...

... Breitbart.

Yes, Breitbart, the "news" source that astronomer and blogger Phil Plait calls a "racist, misogynistic über-right-wing site that calls itself a voice for the 'alt-right' movement" and Slate senior editor Jeremy Stahl said is composed of "neo-Nazis in suits and ties."

Needless to say, the Breitbart article is full of half-truths and outright lies.  Its author, James Delingpole, is one of the worst of the climate change deniers, and apparently will say or do anything up to and including manipulating data to convince people that what we're doing isn't endangering the long-term habitability of the Earth.  Plait has taken on Delingpole before, and sums up his argument (if I can dignify it by that name) that scientists have no idea why the climate is undergoing wild swings as being "like seeing a corpse with a bullet wound to the head and saying 'Except for the bullet wound to the head, you cannot come up with a convincing explanation why this person is dead.'"

This bit isn't anything new, of course.  No matter how sound the science is, there will always be people who will cover their eyes and pretend the evidence doesn't exist.  (Explaining why we still have people who claim that there's no good evidence for evolution.)  But this has taken on a new and sinister twist, now that we have elected officials -- hell, an entire committee -- that see fit to distribute this horseshit as if it has any scientific validity at all.

[image courtesy of NASA]

It would be appalling enough if it was any congressional committee, but the fact that it is the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology moves it out past "appalling" into that rarified stratum that can only be labeled "horrifying."  The people in government who are overseeing funding and regulation for science research are not only denying the actual science, they are contributing to the general misunderstanding of science by the citizenry by sending out links on social media from fringe websites with no credibility whatsoever.

Or, as Plait put it, "The stakes here are as high as they can get.  Climate denialism by Breitbart now gets the imprimatur of the federal government."

So once again, let me reiterate: the scientists themselves are in no doubt whatsoever that climate change is real, and is anthropogenic in origin.  Any doubt about that was laid to rest over ten years ago.  What they are still unsure about is how high the temperatures could get, how quickly they'll get there, and when the predicted outcomes (such as the collapse of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland) will happen.

But in doubt about the warm-up itself?  No.  You only hear that from people like the chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Lamar Smith, who as of 2015, had received over $600,000 in donations from the fossil fuels industry.

So I encourage you to get in touch with the members of the committee, especially those of you who live in the districts they represent.  They are:

Republican Members (22)

Democratic Members (17)

Lamar Smith, Texas* Frank D. Lucas, Oklahoma** F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin+ Dana Rohrabacher, California Randy Neugebauer, Texas Michael T. McCaul, Texas Mo Brooks, Alabama Randy Hultgren, Illinois Bill Posey, Florida Thomas Massie, Kentucky Jim Bridenstine, Oklahoma Randy Weber, Texas John R. Moolenaar, Michigan Steve Knight, California Brian Babin, Texas Bruce Westerman, Arkansas Barbara Comstock, Virginia Gary Palmer, Alabama Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Ralph Lee Abraham, Louisiana Darin LaHood, Illinois Warren Davidson, Ohio *Full Committee Chair +Chairman Emeritus **Vice Chair/Committee

Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas++ Zoe Lofgren, California Daniel Lipinski, Illinois Donna Edwards, Maryland Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Eric Swalwell, California Alan Grayson, Florida Ami Bera, California Elizabeth Esty, Connecticut Marc Veasey, Texas Katherine Clark, Massachusetts Don Beyer, Virginia Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Paul Tonko, New York Mark Takano, California Bill Foster, Illinois Vacant ++Full Committee

If you do, keep it brief, keep it science-related, and keep it polite.  But let them know that it is unequivocally wrong to persist in this denial of accepted, evidence-based science, especially given the potential consequences.  I don't expect you to convince Lamar -- money talks, after all -- but maybe if a little pressure is brought to bear, at least they'll stop retweeting Breitbart.

Sea change

A couple of weeks ago, I did a post about how scientists are beginning to learn how to talk to the rest of us slobs.  The problem, as I see it, is that scientists are trained to be cautious, not to draw unwarrantedly strong conclusions from the evidence, and to admit up front that future studies could change our understanding.  This leads the lay public to believe that they're uncertain -- which, in many cases, is not true.

One of the fields that has been plagued by this is climate science, which has become not only ridiculously politicized but rife with misunderstandings, deliberate falsifications, and outright idiocy.  (I'm lookin' at you, Senator James "Snowball" Inhofe.)  So it was with a great deal of joy that I read Phil Williamson's amazing takedown of climate change denier James Delingpole in this week's edition of The Marine Biologist. Williamson's piece, entitled, "Two Views of Ocean Acidification: Which is Fatally Flawed?" is a point-by-point response to Delingpole, who in April published an article in The Spectator entitled, "Ocean Acidification: Yet Another Wobbly Pillar of Climate Alarmism."

Delingpole's screed was, Williamson said, so full of factual errors and misquotations that it was completely worthless.  But let me quote Williamson's own words:

James Delingpole considers that ocean acidification is a scare story that is not only ‘fatally flawed’ but also grossly over-hyped by climate alarmists, for political reasons.  To give credibility to these views, information and quotes are given from four scientists (Patrick Moore, Mike Wallace, Matt Ridley and Craig Idso).  However, those sources are unreliable: none has relevant marine expertise, and the evidence they provide is either inaccurate or incorrect.  Three other scientists (Howard Browman, Richard Feely and Christopher Sabine) who do have direct research experience are either mis-quoted or their competence is dismissed.  The wider scientific literature is not considered.  Overall, Delingpole’s arguments are based on exaggeration, false dichotomy, deliberate selectivity and bravado assertion: almost everything that could be factually wrong, is wrong.

Which is ScientificSpeak for "BAM."

So the scientists are now playing hardball.  Which they should.  We're gambling with the long-term habitability of the planet.  There is no bigger threat to security, world-wide, than what we're doing to the climate.

The positive part of this is not that the deniers are being converted.  By and large, they aren't.  The reason, of course, is money and political bias.  Consider, for example, Craig Idso (cited repeatedly by Delingpole as a reputable climate scientist), who is the science advisor for the Science and Public Policy Institute, which is funded in part by -- you guessed it -- Exxon-Mobil.  Idso is also associated with the rabidly pro-fossil-fuel Heartland Institute, and has written papers for them calling into question established climate science.

Oh, and I should add that the SPPI has also questioned the dangers of mercury toxicity, and the Heartland Institute was hand-in-glove with Philip Morris to downplay the risks to children of secondhand smoke and to fight smoking bans in public places.

Tell me again how Idso is a reliable source?

[image courtesy of NOAA]

As for Williamson, he pulls no punches at all.  Which he shouldn't.  What is heartening about all of this is that the scientists are finally calling out the deniers for what they are -- either ignorant, anti-science, or in the pay of fossil fuel interests.  At this point, the evidence is incontrovertible.  Anthropogenic climate change is real.  You can deny it if you like.

But don't expect me, or anyone who has a background in science, to take you seriously.

And I said that deniers aren't changing their minds -- but that's not entirely accurate.  People who were in doubt, but kept their minds open and their understanding focused on the evidence, are coming around.  Just this week, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers, who for years placed himself in the doubtful column, wrote a piece called "Changing Opinions on Climate Change."  He methodically traces the evidence that has been uncovered since climate change was first made an issue in the mid-1980s, and describes how his thinking -- "There may be another explanation" -- eventually changed:

I was no longer a skeptic.  Humans were polluting the atmosphere to a point of no return.  I had finally excluded all other possibilities.  Had I flip-flopped?  Well, that is what it would be called in politics.  But in science, it is just an evolution of understanding.  I concluded that my original theory of "it could be something else" wasn't likely the case. 

As I tell my 11-year-old, "It's OK to be wrong as long as you learn from your mistakes." 

The records continue to be shattered every year.  The 15 hottest years on record have been since 2001 except for 1998.  2016 will likely be the hottest year on record, breaking the old record set in 2015, and the beat goes on.  With each year, with each major disaster, it becomes harder to be a skeptic of man-made climate change -- and that is why I am not one.

Well, exactly.  It's okay to be doubtful.  Being able to maintain a position of uncertainty for a while is a huge piece of being a skeptic.  But once the evidence is in, you're done.  To continue to cover your ears and say "la-la-la-la-la-la, not listening" isn't skepticism, it's anti-science bullheadedness.

So the tides are turning.  With luck, it won't be too late, although we still have the perennial roadblock in congress to deal with.  But it's to be hoped that once the word is passed to the public that the time for doubt and discussion is over, the pressure brought to bear on our leaders will finally force a sea change.