A Spork in the Drawer

Meanwhile...

...up at the North Pole:

The North Pole-35 station, where 21 researchers and two dogs live in huts, will be pulled out this week instead of late August, said Sergei Balyasnikov of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St. Petersburg.

"The evacuation is ahead of schedule because of global warming," Balyasnikov said.

And at the opposite pole:

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is experiencing further disintegration that could collapse an ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island helps to stabilize the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk, the researchers said.

It's worth pointing out that it's the dead of winter in Antarctica.

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Open Water

Scary:

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

[...]

The polar regions are experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures due to global warming and scientists fear that as more sea ice is lost, the darker, open ocean will absorb more heat and raise local temperatures even further. Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, who was one of the first civilian scientists to sail underneath the Arctic sea ice in a Royal Navy submarine, said that the conditions are ripe for an unprecedented melting of the ice at the North Pole.

"Last year we saw huge areas of the ocean open up, which has never been experienced before. People are expecting this to continue this year and it is likely to extend over the North Pole. It is quite likely that the North Pole will be exposed this summer – it's not happened before," Professor Wadhams said.

Good thing there's no global warming. Think of how bad it would be then!

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Facts Are Stupid Things

'Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first - verdict afterwards.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the sentence first!'

'Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

'I won't!' said Alice.

'Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865

Alaska:

Alaska's state legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon — researchers just have to fill in the science part.

A $2 million program funded with little debate by the legislature last month calls for using state money to fund an "academic based" conference that highlights contrarian scientific research on global warming. Legislators hope to undermine the public perception of a widespread consensus among polar bear researchers that warming global temperatures and melting Arctic ice threaten the polar bears' survival.

We've gone down the rabbit hole.

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Shelf Life

Swell:

A vast hunk of floating ice has broken away from the Antarctic peninsula, threatening the collapse of a much larger ice shelf behind it, in a development that has shocked climate scientists.

[...]

The collapsing shelf suggests that climate change could be forcing change much more quickly than scientists had predicted.

"The ice shelf is hanging by a thread," said Professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). "We'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be."

[...]

Climate scientists around Antarctica were taken by surprise by the new find. "Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula yet to be threatened," Vaughan said.

"I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. We predicted it would happen, but it's happened twice as fast as we predicted."

Ocean-front property in Kentucky, anyone?

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Heh

This has to make George and Dick very unhappy:

Iraq has formally ratified the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change, according to a government statement seen by AFP on Saturday.

"The presidential council ratified in its session on January 23 a law according to which the Republic of Iraq will join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol," the statement said.

[Via The Lede.]

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And On It Rolls...

More flat-earthism from BushCo™:

The White House severely edited congressional testimony given Tuesday by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impact of climate change on health, removing specific scientific references to potential health risks, according to two sources familiar with the documents. [Emphasis added.]

[...]

"It was eviscerated," said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.

The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly "heavy-handed," with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.

We can't have actual, y'know, facts and data. They might cut into somebody's profits. And facts and data will prevent the triumphant return of the Baby Jesus!

It's just another day in BushCheney's America.

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Nobel Laureate

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The Great Copy Editor Shortage Of 2007

NYT:

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Cold War

Nuts:

A Russian expedition descended in a pair of submersible vessels more than two miles under the ice cap on Thursday and deposited a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. The dive was a symbolic move to enhance the government’s disputed claim to nearly half of the floor of the Arctic Ocean and potential oil or other resources there.

[...]

At least one country with a stake in the issue registered its immediate disapproval of the expedition. “This isn’t the 15th century,” Peter MacKay, Canada’s foreign minister, said on CTV television. “You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say, ‘We’re claiming this territory.’ ”

In addition to Russia and Canada, Norway, Denmark, and, of course, the US are all squabbling over who "owns" the Arctic. And it should go without saying that this is all about oil, gas, and other minerals.

Oh, and all of this is because the Arctic Ice Cap is melting. I can't imagine why that would be happening.

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War With Canada?

It's always about oil:

Canada announced plans Monday to increase its Arctic military presence in an effort to assert sovereignty over the Northwest Passage — a potentially oil-rich region the United States says is international territory.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said six to eight patrol ships will guard what he says are Canadian waters. A deep water port will also be built in a region the U.S. Geological Survey estimates has as much as 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins has criticized Harper's promise to defend the Arctic, claiming the Northwest Passage as "neutral waters."

No doubt DeFib Dick has ordered the Pentagon to draw up invasion plans and told the CIA to "prove" that Canada has been attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger.

And now for the irony:

As global warming melts the passage — which now is only navigable during a slim window in the summer — the waters are exposing unexplored resources such as oil, fishing stocks and minerals, and becoming an attractive shipping route. Commercial ships can shave off some 2,480 miles from Europe to Asia compared with the current routes through the Panama Canal.

So we burn oil which raises temperatures which melts polar ice which means we can drill for oil which we can then burn which...

It's like a feedback loop of stupidity.

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Joke Of The Day

Bush declares US will 'lead' efforts on climate

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Self-Censorship

The Smithsonian buckles under:

The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.

Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered "to show that global warming could go either way," Sullivan said.

[...]

Smithsonian officials denied that political concerns influenced the exhibit, saying the changes were made for reasons of objectivity. And some scientists who consulted on the project said nothing major was omitted.

Sullivan said that to his knowledge, no one in the Bush administration pressured the Smithsonian, whose $1.1 billion budget is mostly taxpayer-funded.

There doesn't need to be overt pressure; the mere knowledge that there will be hell to pay (and maybe budget cuts) is enough to spur self-censorship. And when you have an administration, and influential members of Congress, who's intellects haven't progressed past the 15th century this sort of thing is going to happen.

Rather, [Sullivan] said, Smithsonian leaders acted on their own. "The obsession with getting the next allocation and appropriation was so intense that anything that might upset the Congress or the White House was being looked at very carefully," he said.

Precisely.

Amid the oil-drilling debate in 2003, a photo exhibit of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was moved to a less prominent space.

This was an instance of pressure from none other than Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Bridge to Nowhere) though he denied it:

Stevens said the Smithsonian had a right to protect itself from political advocacy. He denied that he had exerted any influence on the Smithsonian on this issue and said he was angry that environmental advocates would use the "Smithsonian as a forum."

And this is where we are: Presenting facts is nothing but "advocacy." Which, I suppose, is true in its way. But when those facts disagree with ideology, they become "advocacy."

We live in a hell of a country.

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And On It Goes

George is determined to spend every one of his remaining 612 days in office making sure that the US is a global pariah:

UN-hosted talks on climate change have ended in deadlock.

They were aimed at paving the way for the climate summit taking place in Bali in December which will focus on how to forward the Kyoto Protocol.

However, the US said it was unlikely to take part in negotiations at the end of this year on a global agreement to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

[...]

However, Dr Harlan Watson, the United States chief negotiator on climate, told the BBC: "I think there's a lot going on but I certainly wouldn't want to raise expectations, however, that there's going to be some sort of a new negotiation under the framework convention itself.

"I just think that it's not going to happen. It's certainly not something we think the time is right for."

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Something Lighter

Sex Farm!

While rock fans have been dreaming of a Spinal Tap reunion for years, an important enough reason for the band to get back together has remained elusive. What possible cause could be big enough bring back the band who have seen it all, played it all and, later, scooped it all into a box so they could take it on their tour bus with them?

The answer has become clear today, however, after it was announced that the legendary UK act led by Nigel Tufnel and David St Hubbins are to reform in order to fight global warming. A new film delving into the band's eco-consciousness is to be screened today, and they will back it up with an appearance at this summer's Live Earth festival.

Greatest. Band. EVAH!

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Comb Licker Death Watch

Still doing the White House's bidding:

One of Paul Wolfowitz’s two handpicked deputies, Juan José Daboub, tried to water down references to climate change in one of the World Bank’s main environmental strategy papers, the bank’s chief scientist has told the Financial Times.

Mr Daboub, a conservative former finance minister from El Salvador, was brought into the bank by Mr Wolfo­witz. He is already under fire for allegedly trying to take out references to family planning in the bank’s Madagascar country assistance strategy and reduce its prominence in its new health sector strategy.

Once a neocon always a neocon.

The board of the World Bank has just about had enough.

Gone by Friday?

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The Future's So Bright...

...I gotta wear lighter clothing:

Climate change will exact a major cost on North America's timber industry and could drive as much as 40 percent of its plant and animal species to extinction in a matter of decades, according to a new report from an international panel.

[...]

The 67-page report, which examines everything from freshwater ecosystems to tourism, said North America has suffered severe environmental and economic damage because of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves and forest fires. Without "increased investments in countermeasures," the authors wrote that they are at least 90 percent sure that "hot temperatures and extreme weather are likely to cause increased adverse health impacts from heat-related mortality, pollution, storm-related fatalities and injuries, and infectious diseases."

The common argument against taking measures against warming is that they would wreck the economy. But warming, by itself, will likely wreck the economy. The slow-witted would call this a conundrum.

Ironically, the good capitalists who are afraid of wrecking the economy could be making boodles of money preparing for climate change. But they're slow-witted.

Speaking of slow-witted, I present you Sen. James Inhofe (R-Cloud Cuckoo Land):

Inhofe informed Gore that scientists are "radically at odds with your claims." Displaying a photograph of icicles in Buffalo, Inhofe demanded: "How come you guys never seem to notice it when it gets cold? . . . Where is global warming when you really need it?"

That's a rare kind of stupid. But not rare enough, unfortunately.

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Incisive Analysis

Deep thoughts from the Daily Scaife:

That Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," a political screed on global warming, won an Oscar for "best documentary feature" shows how the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences knows the meaning of neither "documentary" nor "science."

Yes, that's the entire entry.

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The Greatest Threat To Our Nation

The Weather Channel.

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A Whole New Level Of Stupid

Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg, a a known welsher*, trots out some statistics and looks like an idiot:

The Earth got about 0.7 degrees Celsius warmer in the 20th century while it increased its GDP by 1,800%, by one estimate. How much of that 0.7 degrees can be laid at the feet of that 1,800% is unknowable, but let's stipulate that all of the warming was the result of our prosperity and that this warming is in fact indisputably bad (which is hardly obvious). That's still an amazing bargain. Life spans in the United States nearly doubled (from 44 to 77 years). Literacy, medicine, leisure and even, in many respects, the environment have improved mightily over the course of the 20th century, at least in the prosperous West.

"...unknowable, but let's stipulate..."

I won't even bother with this column.

*I'm part Welsh so don't give me any guff.

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They Get Letters

NYT:

To the Editor:

As usual, the fashionable view eventually becomes tyrannical and will no longer permit debate. It looks now as if the momentum of the global-warming evangelists is unstoppable.

You state in your Feb. 3 front-page article that the United States accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s emissions. Somewhere between consuming and emitting fossil fuels is that thing called United States economic growth, which continues to be a boon to the world — for 2006, a sparkling 3.4 percent.

Some say they don’t want their children to have to cope with the alleged nightmare of climate change, but I am far sadder that my children will have to cope with the reduced richness of opportunity that will exist at every socioeconomic level in an economy crippled by restricted access to the energy that powers it.

It will be a sad sight to watch the spectacular American private-sector engine and the optimistic innovativeness that has always been its hallmark diminished for want of fuel.

Margaret McGirr
Greenwich, Conn., Feb. 3, 2007

OK, Margaret, how will the economy respond to the changing agricultural belt, rising seas, diminished water sources, emergent diseases, refugees, etc., etc,. etc...? That's going to cost a penny or two.

Didn't think of that, did you? Or possibly you don't care.

So much for your children.

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Ignorance Rising

Meanwhile:

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming," Hardiman wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

[...]

In the end, though, the board opted for an abundance of balance.

That means that "An Inconvenient Truth" may be shown only with the written permission of a principal -- and only when it is balanced by alternative views that are approved by both a principal and the superintendent of schools.

Hardiman was pleased.

"I am happy they are giving the kids as much information as possible," he said.

His daughter's science teacher, meanwhile, said she is struggling to find authoritative articles to counter the information in the Gore documentary.

"The only thing I have found so far is an article in Newsweek called 'The Cooling World,' " Walls said.

Earlier, Hardiman said:

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

The standard Fundie line is that the Earth is 6,000-10,000 years old. So Hardiman is ignorant of his own dogma.

And these people are increasingly running our schools.

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Still Raising The Bar

When last we heard from Sen. James Inhofe he was nattering on about "brainwashing." In his never-ending quest to be the stupidest person on the planet Oklahoma's Finest this morning took to FAUXNews:

INHOFE: Now look, God’s still up there. We still have these natural changes, and this is what’s going on right now. New science comes out. I had a news conference yesterday, Brian, and the reason I did is because we were going to go over to Nairobi, take a bunch of scientists to get the true science over there, only to find out that the registration had dropped off. Almost no media was over there. So we had the same news conference yesterday right here in Washington, D.C.

We had all these scientists and all of them came to the conclusion, yes, part of the globe is warming. Let’s keep in mind, now, the southern hemisphere has never been warming and changing in the last 25 years. The last time I checked that’s part of the globe.

But if the northern hemisphere is warming up, it’s not due to manmade gases. And that’s what these people all come to the conclusion. And yet the other side, the far left, the George Soros, the Hollywood elitists, the far left environmentalists on the committee that I chair — all of them want us to believe the science is settled and it’s not.

By the way, there’s all kinds of new things. Gretchen, you’ll enjoy this. Get your violin out and get ready. They came out with a great discovery just a few weeks ago. And this came from the geophysical research letters and you know what they said? Hold on now! They said the warming is due to the sun. Isn’t that remarkable?

GRETCHEN: Wow.

BRIAN: That’s a Fox News alert.

GRETCHEN: That is a Fox News alert.

(Video at link.)

Dumber by the day.

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It's Come To This

A tussle over the Norhwest Passage:

A long-standing legal wrangle between the United States and Canada could complicate future shipping through the Arctic as global warming melts the ice in the Northwest Passage.

The United States contends that the Northwest Passage, though owned by Canada, is an international strait with free passage for all, like other straits around the world. U.S. officials say they are following a long-standing position in favor of keeping straits free to all navigation and want unimpeded movement of U.S. ships.

Canada counters that it has sole jurisdiction over the Northwest Passage and wants to enforce its own laws on ships in the Arctic waters. Canadian officials argue that their authority over the myriad channels and straits that make up the legendary route from the Atlantic to the Pacific is the best way to minimize unsafe ships and accidental spills in the pristine North.

The issue has suddenly come alive because climate change is reducing the Arctic ice pack that prevents regular shipping through the passage.

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