Global Climate Change: Now we can add the accelerated sinking of Venice to our accomplishments

Those ultra-liberal Chinese have brainwashed themselves into believing in climate change. Boinky et al, what you say about those fools?
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-06-05/china-working-to-cap-emissions-as-soon-as-possible-xie

venturen said:

when hedgefund guys are telling you, you have to spend all your money on something you better make sure it is true. It is sad that anytime anyone wants to validate the planets climate history they are shouted down. Most climate data is now using satellite data which only started being collected 35 years ago then guessed at backwards. Not one person on the planet knows the weather for the arctic prior to 100 year ago. We can guess, but weather is regional. chew on this admission Antarctic began melting 5,000 years earlier than first thought(Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2641871/Antarctic-began-melting-5-000-years-earlier-thought-Ice-sheets-volatile-past-reveals-unstable-future-claims-study.html#ixzz33EVrc2a0 yet every sources tells us the antarctic ice sheet started melthing with the industrial revolution...Amazing how big swathes of our understanding change, but yet many people don't think we should be improving our understand and should just act with today's poor renewable technology and throw money a that problem. According the current group think on climate they keep telling us it start 100-200 years ago! Current "solutions" such as thousands of 500ft tall industrial wind turbines destroying land, killing birds and bats(up to 80 per tower per year...multiple millions a year in total) and operating 25% of the time...are horrible! Biomass...the chopping down of forests to burn the highest CO2 output source of power...also emits high portions of H20 an even worse greenhouse gas. Let not forget burning food stuff as ethanol. Solar panel are replete with numerous problems...like most power is needed when the sun goes down...and currently there is no workable grid sized solution to store that power....the trials have failed on all grid sized solutions! Yet there are many cronies of the powers that be that have made millions off this environmental charade. One of Obama largest campaign donor kicked back the money he made from government and ratepayer kickbacks so he could get an Ambassadorship...kickbacks are great. The most obvious and workable solutions of conservation, efficiency and geothermal pumps....aren't really pushed as the insiders can't make the money. This is all about money! History has numerous times when the temperatures have dropped or risen that we don't understand...yet virtually everyone here will parrot the latest NYT or Huffington lobbyists piece on why some campaign backer of a politician should get billions! Let's not forget ethanol has made billions for GOP votes...and done exactly ZERO for the environment! This is about money not doing well for the planet....as no hedgefund manager has done anything for the good of anyone but themselves!

You forgot to mention wave energy.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/agucadoura-generating-power-1500-homes/

Here's a reason why we need to control emissions. As the economy rebounds all sectors have increased CO2 emissions. the upside is more jobs and income. The downside is more emissions. Technologies that can help capture the CO2 are critical.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dioxide-emissions-rise-with-rebounding-economy/

Not all data with graph came across:
(a) the horizontal gray lines are for 5%, 10% and 15% rates of growth
(b) going across: the vertical bars represent residential, commercial, industrial, transportation and electric power
(c) the cluster on the left is for all of 2013 and the cluster on the right is for the first two months of 2014

Here's an article from Mother Jones on Neil DeGrasse Tyson, a famous scientist and host of Cosmos:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/06/neil-degrasse-tyson-final-cosmos-interview-republicans

The show last Sunday was on Climate Change. Here's a quote on its ratings among younger viewers:

"If you care about the place of science in our culture, then this has to be the best news in a very long time. Last Sunday night, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—which airs on Fox and then the next day on the National Geographic Channel—actually tied ABC's 'The Bachelorette' for the top ratings among young adult viewers, the 'key demographic' coveted by advertisers. And it did so by—that's right—airing an episode about the reality of climate change."

After all, it is their lives and people younger than them that may endure the most havoc from Climate Change.

I found this quote very telling, about the ignorance of the Republican Party:

"And yet, many members of our species still deny that the globe is warming thanks to human activities—a point that Cosmos has not only made a centerpiece but that, the program has frankly argued, threatens civilization as we know it. Tyson is know for being fairly non-confrontational; for not wanting to directly argue with or debate those who deny science in various areas. He prefers to just tell it like it is, to educate. But when we talked he was, perhaps, a little more blunt than usual.

" 'At some point, I don't know how much energy they have to keep fighting it,' he said of those who don't accept the science of climate change. 'It's an emergent scientific truth.' Tyson added that in the political sphere, denying the science is just a bad strategy. 'The Republican Party, so many of its members are resistant to embracing the facts of climate change that the legislation that they should be eager to influence, they're left outside the door,' said Tyson. 'Because they think the debate is whether or not it's happening, rather than what policy and legislation can serve their interests going forward.' "

I guess that is the most charitable way of expressing the stupidity of the Republicans and, of course, some Democrats. Just say it isn't happening.

The country better hope that El Nino brings some rain to the Southwest. A couple more years of that kind of drought will wreak havoc with agriculture and may make it very difficult to maintain property values. People may be forced to leave as there just might not be enough water.

Sadly, another article from Mother Jones on California which is enduring a drought that could very well be the worst in 500 years!!

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2014/06/drought-poll?google_editors_picks=true

The article had results of various polls of Californians on the drought:

"Big problem, getting bigger

"Just prior to California's last gubernatorial election in November 2010, 46 percent of voters agreed that 'having enough water to meet our future needs' mattered 'a great deal.' The proportion of people who care a lot about water issues has crept up a lot since then:

"Last September, 63 percent of voters called the drought a 'crisis or major problem.'
"89 percent of voters call the drought a 'crisis or major problem' now.


"Save us some water, just don't send us the bill

"Californians are notoriously tax averse, but even what may be the worst drought in 500 years is apparently not enough to get most voters to agree that the state should improve its water infrastructure:

"36 percent of voters said the state should improve water storage and delivery systems, even if it costs money.
"52 percent said the state should address these problems without spending money, by taking measures like encouraging conservation."

So...at this point over half the people in California think that the State should do nothing it it involves spending money.

I guess none of them understand that the water needed to survive in much of California comes from massive public works projects that are not funded through charities. These are government projects and some may have been good and some may have been bad, but without them (Hoover Dam comes to mind) there would be very little in southern California.

The Desert Sun newspaper has a really excellent, in-depth analysis of the drought in the Southwest and its impact on the water supply system. On that site are numerous links to related articles that they have published.

http://www.desertsun.com/longform/news/environment/2014/06/14/global-warming-southwest-water-supply-drought/10418637/

To all the posters who still say climate change is not much of a threat and based on garbage science, here's an interesting article for you to read:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/18/epa-republicans-climate_n_5509048.html

Four Republican EPA Administrators testified before a US Senate Subcommittee and got nowhere trying to convince the Republican Senators to get their heads out of their asses.

Some quotes:

"Four Republican former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency had a message for the Senate on Wednesday on climate change: It's real, it's bad and the United States should do something about it.

"But their fellow Republicans at the hearing largely ignored that position, instead repeating a variety of arguments about why the U.S. should not address the greenhouse gas emissions causing the planet to warm up.

"The hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety focused on new EPA standards for reducing emissions from power plants. The standards, released on June 2, have been a major point of contention for congressional Republicans."

The EPA Administrators who testified were:
William Ruckelshaus, served under Nixon and Reagan
Christine Todd Whitman, served under W
Lee Thomas, served under Reagan
William Reilly, served under Bush the first

More quotes:
"During the hearing, the subcommittee's Republicans raised a range of challenges to the EPA rules. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) argued that the rules would have 'serious economic consequences' while providing 'no measurable impact on climate change.' He also said he's 'frustrated' by the 'cartoonish' and 'outlandish' claims that proponents of climate action make to dismiss critics of the science. Vitter has previously called evidence cited to support climate change 'ridiculous pseudo-science garbage.'

"Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) criticized 'expensive, big-government, left-wing climate policies.' Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) accused the EPA of trying to 'force Americans to live out the president's green dream.' Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) challenged the idea that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

" 'I would say CO2 is a different kettle of fish,' said Sessions. 'It's plant food. It's not a pollutant in any normal definition.' [edited to add: how stupid is he? Raise the concentration too high in your house and you might have a problem. Does he know how a greenhouse actually works? We also need water to survive but absent flood control or swim lessons, you can die from too much water. Is he really that stupid?? Just as their are qualifying tests to go to med school or graduate from high school, shouldn't there be one for US Senator??]

"The Republicans called three witnesses for the hearing: a biologist who argues that climate change is not significantly affected by human activity; the attorney general of Alabama, who has fought other EPA actions in court; and an economist who criticized cap and trade (a policy previously debated in Congress to address climate change, but not, in fact, the policy that the EPA has put in place)."

Vitter, Inhofe, Sessions are measurably stupid people who throw red meat to their constituents and crow how much they care about them. Let's see: Louisiana (Vitters), Alabama (Sessions) and Oklahoma (Inhofe) are not much on education, especially Louisiana and Alabama. Those two states, along with Mississippi, are among the worst in educating their citizens. Oklahoma does a bit better. These Senators do nothing to improve the long-term plight of their citizens except grab FEDERAL money. Certainly the Feds have to dredge their harbors, rebuild their states after mother nature tears them apart (think Katrina) site military bases in their states, even have a NASA facility in Huntsville -- ironically NASA believes in climate change.

Edited to add:Arkansas (Boozman) is also a pitiful excuse for a state. It was pitiful before the Clintons, during the Clintons and after the Clintons. It is a way of life. Arkansas schools suck and the politicians are immensely proud of that as they can keep precious taxes down. These states endorse the race to the bottom.

Alabama has barred state scientists from even using the words climate change in their assessment of the vulnerability of Mobile, AL to rising sea levels. Isn't that precious! So when Mobile gets clobbered, as it will sooner or later, maybe the rest of the US taxpayers should object to bailing out the state of Alabama. Dumb asses.

Alabama should be forbidden from using the words "storm" or "flood" next time they need to ask for disaster relief.

you use the Huffington Post as an unbiased source? Really? How about reading from an actual paper what Fritz Vahrenholt says. He is considered the Godfather of the greens in Germany and was president of the their largest renewable energy company. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9338939/Global-warming-second-thoughts-of-an-environmentalist.html
It is shocking the number of people that take global warming hook line and sinker and yell down any critical scientific thought. I have a booked published in the late 70's that proclaimed all the doom of the Weather Machine....put out by PBS...the worry that it was assured that we had global cooling and won't be able to grow food!
Critical scientific thought and the best use of money to lower our impact is the best way. But many of the loudest voices such as Al Gore see this purely in the context of scaring people to take their money. This is why Al Gore has made 100's of millions and the government is squandering money on very poorly thought out plans to enrich political cronies. We squander money on wind turbines which operate at 20% of claimed capacity and kill millions of birds and bats. The wind turbines in Atlantic City are each killing 80 bats/birds year documented in 2 years of study(they don't bother caring after that). In the first year one turbine killed a peregrine falcon...there are only 25 breeding pair in the entire state! In Pennsylvania wind turbines are each killing 25 bats....totaling 75000 each and every year! Wind Turbines are one of the biggest killers of Gold Eagles in California. The backers of this money grab go to great lengths to make sure there is little studying of the harmful effects. Conservation and efficiency are much more cost effective...problem is not as much money can be passed to the politically connected. For instance the recently named US ambassador to Ireland made millions on tax and rate payer funded wind turbines...he turned around kickbacked this wind fall and was one of Obama biggest bundlers. Not that republicans are against taking renewable money, ethanol has made many a corn farmer very wealthy at the expense of anyone driving a car, while doing nothing to reduce CO2. BIOMASS which is many times just wood burning is horrible...emitting more CO2 than pretty much any power source. What is wrong with wanting to be honest and efficient? Or should we just keep throwing good money after bad to the politically connected?

Complains about HuffPo link then links to Daily Telegraph. Good move, partner.

venturen said:

What is wrong with wanting to be honest and efficient?

Nothing. Do you think that the earth's climate has warmed significantly since 1900?

venturen said:

you use the Huffington Post as an unbiased source? Really? How about reading from an actual paper what Fritz Vahrenholt says. He is considered the Godfather of the greens in Germany and was president of the their largest renewable energy company. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9338939/Global-warming-second-thoughts-of-an-environmentalist.html
It is shocking the number of people that take global warming hook line and sinker and yell down any critical scientific thought. I have a booked published in the late 70's that proclaimed all the doom of the Weather Machine....put out by PBS...the worry that it was assured that we had global cooling and won't be able to grow food!
Critical scientific thought and the best use of money to lower our impact is the best way. But many of the loudest voices such as Al Gore see this purely in the context of scaring people to take their money. This is why Al Gore has made 100's of millions and the government is squandering money on very poorly thought out plans to enrich political cronies. We squander money on wind turbines which operate at 20% of claimed capacity and kill millions of birds and bats. The wind turbines in Atlantic City are each killing 80 bats/birds year documented in 2 years of study(they don't bother caring after that). In the first year one turbine killed a peregrine falcon...there are only 25 breeding pair in the entire state! In Pennsylvania wind turbines are each killing 25 bats....totaling 75000 each and every year! Wind Turbines are one of the biggest killers of Gold Eagles in California. The backers of this money grab go to great lengths to make sure there is little studying of the harmful effects. Conservation and efficiency are much more cost effective...problem is not as much money can be passed to the politically connected. For instance the recently named US ambassador to Ireland made millions on tax and rate payer funded wind turbines...he turned around kickbacked this wind fall and was one of Obama biggest bundlers. Not that republicans are against taking renewable money, ethanol has made many a corn farmer very wealthy at the expense of anyone driving a car, while doing nothing to reduce CO2. BIOMASS which is many times just wood burning is horrible...emitting more CO2 than pretty much any power source. What is wrong with wanting to be honest and efficient? Or should we just keep throwing good money after bad to the politically connected?

er, what?

I have no idea what your rant is about. I will take a stab at dissecting it. Let me know if I am wrong.

Are there people who will use any side of the debate to line their pockets? Yes indeed. There are crooks and slimeballs everywhere. Since there are slimeballs on both sides, it sort of cancels out a large part of your rant, no? Or did I get that wrong?

The slimeball thing in my mind relates to what an individual does to enrich himself/herself. It says nothing about the validity of the scientific issue.

Are their vested interests on the anti-global climate change side? Why, surprisingly, yes! They are the ones who might have to change their business models to slow down the rate of growth. I am shocked!
Scientists do change their minds and that is generally a healthy thing. Why there were scientists, so to speak, who said the Sun moved around the Earth. Then a bunch said no, the Earth moved around the Sun and paid for it dearly. Why it wasn't that long ago that some so-called scientists said smoking was just fine. Then others said no, it isn't all that good for you.

The point there is that as more data is collected previous positions might have to change.

Let's see:
* Galileo and kindred folks overturned the Aristotelian world view;
*Newton and many others created the "clockwork universes" using what we now call classical mechanics and the calculus and related math
* Planck, Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and quite a few more overturned the clockwork universe with relativity and quantum theory
* Geology was once a static science until well into the 20th century when the theory of plate tectonics overturned the previous world view.

All sorts of advances occur when scientists challenge accepted viewpoints -- especially if data shows the accepted viewpoint can't hold.

Unfortunately for the anti-climate change guys the data is showing that the accepted worldview of we can do whatever we want whenever we want to the planet we live on is fast falling apart.

Right now, today, this instant the data is so overwhelming that climate is changing that it might be time for the naysayers -- generally people who want to build in flood zones, older scientists who like the old models (yes, there are a bunch of those), politicians who dislike government and don't want it meddling in their affairs (until after a disaster strikes then their filthy criminal hands are stretched out asking for federal disaster aid) -- to stop and figure out just what will we leave our children.

The naysayers are particularly stupid in that they now pass laws that prevent scientists in some states from using climate change as a reason for taking actions . Sure, maybe North Carolina will pass a law outlawing ocean level rises -- wouldn't that be something! I am sure the Atlantic Ocean will obey the pinheads in the North Carolina legislature, just as the Gulf of Mexico will ignore Alabama's legislature and decide to wipe out Mobile someday.

Go to the various links that are from the US Military, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, NASA, Bloomberg, the UN and many others. Maybe the onus is now on you to disprove all of the research and come up with something besides a rant.

My recollection from the 1970's is that the predictions of coming global cooling were based on sunspot cycles and were not taking carbon dioxide levels into consideration. Unfortunately rising CO2 levels have overwhelmed other factors.

Well now. Here is an article from the NY Times (I can hear the doubters -- liberal brain washers) that ALL of the deniers should at the very minimum take a cursory glance at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/science/report-tallies-toll-on-economy-from-global-warming.html?_r=1

Here are the first 3 paragraphs:

"More than a million homes and businesses along the nation’s coasts could flood repeatedly before ultimately being destroyed. Entire states in the Southeast and the Corn Belt may lose much of their agriculture as farming shifts northward in a warming world. Heat and humidity will probably grow so intense that spending time outside will become physically dangerous, throwing industries like construction and tourism into turmoil.

"That is a picture of what may happen to the United States economy in a world of unchecked global warming, according to a major new report released Tuesday by a coalition of senior political and economic figures from the left, right and center, including three Treasury secretaries stretching back to the Nixon administration.

"At a time when the issue of climate change has divided the American political landscape, pitting Republicans against Democrats and even fellow party members against one another, the unusual bipartisan alliance of political veterans said that the country — and business leaders in particular — must wake up to the enormous scale of the economic risk."

I hope the doubters read the rest of the article. The three Treasury Secretaries who participated were:

George Shultz, Treasury Secretary under Nixon and Secretary of State under Reagan;
Henry M. Paulson Jr., a Republican who served under President George W. Bush, and
Robert E. Rubin, Treasury Secretary under Clinton.

I know -- I can hear it now from the deniers -- they've been drugged or bribed or are just plain senile.

And the commie-lefties who financed the report were identified in the Times article:

"The campaign behind the new report, called Risky Business, is funded largely by three wealthy financiers who are strong advocates of action on global warming: Mr. Paulson, who with his wife, Wendy, has helped finance conservation efforts for decades; Thomas F. Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund executive and Democrat who is pushing to make global warming a central issue in political races around the country; and Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, who now urges cities to confront the threat of climate change.

"They commissioned an economic modeling firm that often does work for the oil and gas industry, the Rhodium Group, to assemble a team of experts who carried out the risk analysis. Trevor Houser, a Rhodium partner who led the study, sought to insulate the findings from the political opinions of the sponsors, in part by setting up a committee of leading climate scientists and environmental economists who reviewed the work."

I guess that sums it up. Far left wing liberal/commies who want to crush the American spirit issue a report packed full of lies, half truths and junk science.

Must be fun to be a denier.

When will all this happen? Will the deniers be dead by then?

tom said:

Alabama should be forbidden from using the words "storm" or "flood" next time they need to ask for disaster relief.

And Texas.

venturen said:

you use the Huffington Post as an unbiased source? Really? How about reading from an actual paper what Fritz Vahrenholt says. He is considered the Godfather of the greens in Germany and was president of the their largest renewable energy company. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9338939/Global-warming-second-thoughts-of-an-environmentalist.html
It is shocking the number of people that take global warming hook line and sinker and yell down any critical scientific thought. I have a booked published in the late 70's that proclaimed all the doom of the Weather Machine....put out by PBS...the worry that it was assured that we had global cooling and won't be able to grow food!
Critical scientific thought and the best use of money to lower our impact is the best way. But many of the loudest voices such as Al Gore see this purely in the context of scaring people to take their money. This is why Al Gore has made 100's of millions and the government is squandering money on very poorly thought out plans to enrich political cronies. We squander money on wind turbines which operate at 20% of claimed capacity and kill millions of birds and bats. The wind turbines in Atlantic City are each killing 80 bats/birds year documented in 2 years of study(they don't bother caring after that). In the first year one turbine killed a peregrine falcon...there are only 25 breeding pair in the entire state! In Pennsylvania wind turbines are each killing 25 bats....totaling 75000 each and every year! Wind Turbines are one of the biggest killers of Gold Eagles in California. The backers of this money grab go to great lengths to make sure there is little studying of the harmful effects. Conservation and efficiency are much more cost effective...problem is not as much money can be passed to the politically connected. For instance the recently named US ambassador to Ireland made millions on tax and rate payer funded wind turbines...he turned around kickbacked this wind fall and was one of Obama biggest bundlers. Not that republicans are against taking renewable money, ethanol has made many a corn farmer very wealthy at the expense of anyone driving a car, while doing nothing to reduce CO2. BIOMASS which is many times just wood burning is horrible...emitting more CO2 than pretty much any power source. What is wrong with wanting to be honest and efficient? Or should we just keep throwing good money after bad to the politically connected?

Paranoid often? Or just AM radio obsessed?

Here are some projected temp maps from that report by the Rhodium Group. They show the rise in the number of days of temperatures over 95 degrees. The chart is found at:
http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/06/these-maps-show-how-many-brutally-hot-days-youre-likely-to-suffer-when-youre-old/373323/

I think the message here is move to Maine or Wisconsin.

Looks like Texas is Toast.

drummerboy said:

Looks like Texas is Toast.

It won't change the opinions of Texans. Particularly with their history of thought-leadership on environmental issues.

I don't want any state to suffer.



But if one state needed to suffer, I'd want it to be Texas.

The head of the largest private company in he US, Cargill, Inc., said that the US has to be concerned about climate change:
http://www.thenation.com/article/180420/chairman-largest-private-company-america-just-told-1-percent-worry-about-climate-chan#

The executive, Greg Page, participated in the study backed by Bloomberg and others and had the three former secretaries of the Treasury on board. Here's some quotes from The Nation article:

"It’s a message that has begun to gain traction among corporate elites, like Greg Page, executive chairman and former CEO of Cargill, Inc., who participated in the high-level 'Risk Committee that developed the scope of the report and approved its findings.

"Cargill is the largest privately held company in the United States, and its political contributions skew heavily—about 4 to 1—in favor of Republican members of Congress, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

"Page’s participation in the 'Risky Business' report stands in stark contrast to the executives of the nation’s second-largest privately held corporation—Koch Industries. While the political largess of the billionaire Koch brothers dwarfs that of Cargill, Page’s call for action on climate change could have ripple effects across US political and business communities."

Let's hope so!

I have noticed all the MOL disbelievers in climate change are remarkable silent. Maybe it is how the issue is posed to them. See the next post from me.

A very interesting article by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones on scientific literacy:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/06/dan-kahan-climate-change-ideology-scientific-illiteracy

The basic premise is that if the question is posed as a "belief" in some form or fashion, then the question challenges deeply held religious or political beliefs. The article gives stats on a question related to evolution. If is a belief question, then a huge percentage of Americans say they don;t believe in it. If the question is posed as a literacy question, do scientists think such and such, then a very high percentage of Americans get it right.

So the professor who analyzed this then quoted a bunch of stats from a series of questions on climate change. You have to go through the while article to get the detail but I can put some up here.

"To understand Kahan's analysis, it helps to start where much of his prior research—extensively covered by Klein, myself, and others—left off. Kahan has defined a measure that he calls "ordinary science intelligence," which assesses how good people are at mathematical and scientific reasoning and at questioning their own beliefs. Using this survey tool, he is able to present evidence showing that (1) as people get better at science, they are more likely in general to affirm that global warming is mostly due to human activities; but (2) as soon as you split people up in to liberals and conservatives, that conclusion goes out the window. Actually, liberals get way better in their answers as their science ability increases, and conservatives get considerably worse:

"This 'smart idiot' effect has prompted a ton of hand-wringing on the left; by now, Kahan has captured it in many studies. In the context of the current research, though, he's just getting started.

"Mirroring the NSF's approach to evolution, Kahan created a new questionnaire that he hopes can more extensively measure people's knowledge about the science of climate change. But—crucially—in this questionnaire, most of the questions started out with the phrase 'climate scientists believe that…' Such is Kahan's attempt (only an initial one, he stresses) to disentangle people's identities and political ideology from what they just plain know."

"Probability of giving the correct answer on a question about climate change in relation to individuals' political ideology and science "intelligence." Dan Kahan. (For graph below)

The question in previous post was a "belief" type question and it splits responses purely along political lines. Here are some results when questions are posed on scientific literacy rather than challenging a religious or political belief. This quote below, from the article, refers to the first set of graphs and the second quote refers to the second set of graphs:

Examples of "Ordinary Climate Science Intelligence" items and the public's probability of giving the right answers. Answers (from left to right, top to bottom) are "carbon dioxide," "true," "false," and "false." Dan Kahan.

Left right differences in responses to climate science "intelligence" questions. Correct answers (from left to right, top to bottom) are "carbon dioxide," "true," "false," and "false." Dan Kahan.

Data point: This past May was the hottest May on record.

From the Atlantic an interesting chart on when the hottest days of the year occur, nationally (Continental US):

http://www.citylab.com/weather/2014/06/a-reality-check-on-the-hottest-times-of-year-across-the-us/373572/

What's the take-away from that, other than an interesting factoid?

Just trying to up the scientific literacy on MOL (see earlier posts)!

The timing of hottest days in the year may change as climate change continues. From the article:

"This map will likely look much different in the future as the atmosphere heats up. Globally, this past month was the warmest May on record dating back to 1880, and April likewise was the hottest on record, with abnormal torridness in much of the American West and Alaska."

The timing of peak weather temps may shift and that, along with perhaps longer hot spells, may make for some significant changes in agriculture. Already many scientists suspect that the shift in agriculture has a geographic twist -- US agriculture may shift northward and more stuff will be grown in Canada as it warms and less in the US as it warms also, but gets too hot in many states for significant crop growth.

I couldn't find an earlier map but one can find some massive databases at the NOAA site with earlier data. Have fun!!

Sad story on growing problem in the Mediterranean, for MOL-ers who vacation in the south of France:

"Mediterranean region struggles with warming, acidification and jellyfish blooms"

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060001978

It describes a growing problem in the Mediterranean and how little research has been done.