September 18th, 2017 · Comments Off on Turning one’s back on science: the New Mexico derivative
In the name of science, school systems — state school boards typically — around the nation are working on science standards. Much is made, by many, of American education’s need to focus on STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) (and, often now, STEAM: Science Technology Engineering Arts Mathematics).
“[Science] is more than a school subject, or the periodic table, or the properties of waves. It is an approach to the world, a critical way to understand and explore and engage with the world, and then have the capacity to change that world…”
— President Barack Obama, March 23, 2015
Then comes a discussion of STEM shortfalls: in numbers of teachers, pipelines of students to meet 21st employment requirements, etc … STEM is, for many, core to economic competitiveness in the years, decades, centuries to come.
Amid the drive to tackle this challenge, the Next Generation Science Standards “to create a set of research-based, up-to-date K–12 science standards. These standards give local educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepares them for college, careers, and citizenship.” The NextGen Standards were state driven and funded, with several dozen states involved. These standards are having impacts in science classrooms around the country.
let alone humanity’s driving of a warming earth, and, of course not,
the risks that unchecked climate change creates for humanity let alone
the risks of making the desert Southwest virtually uninhabitable with the potential for massive droughts amid hotter temperatures;
Geology’s scientific learning as to Earth’s history
Ignoring and, in fact, seeking to undermine quality science in the name of — almost certainly — religious extremism and ideological purposes is the exact opposite of what STEM/STEAM is about.
All young people should be prepared to think deeply and to think well so that they have the chance to become the innovators, educators, researchers, and leaders who can solve the most pressing challenges facing our nation and our world, both today and tomorrow.
This is being done in the name of having education that is “a reflection of the diversity of New Mexico“, the “diversity of perspectives” of NM residents. With that in mind should ask:
Will New Mexico’s science classes offer alternative perspectives that the Earth is flat?
Should students be taught that the moon landings were fake?
Will history classes teach that the Bush Administration was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks?
Will there be a year of education about alien abductions?
Will there be an AA portion of NM’s science education: astronomy + astrology?
Will …
All of these are, sadly, beliefs held by some Americans, including in New Mexico. Does ‘diversity of perspectives’ mean equally balancing the ‘perspectives’ of people whose last science education was in 10th grade thirty years ago and a Nobel-laureate scientist?
Ignoring and undermine STEM education will not make America and Americans more competitive in the 21st century and will not help set the path to ‘solve the most pressing challenges.
“I’m certainly not going to move a high-tech company here, because I’m not going to get a scientifically educated population,” said Kim Johnson, a physicist and former president of the New Mexico Academy of Science.
“We’re doing the one thing in terms of educating our children that tend to push those kinds of businesses away,” he said.
Johnson said the proposed standards are an attempt to appease those who have for years tried to scrub evolution and climate change from the state’s science curriculum.
Just as appeasement worked very well with Hitler, it isn’t any more sensible as a path to deal with those with anti-science attitudes. The proposed New Mexico (anti-)science standards that emphasize “diversity of perspectives” would will lead to an undermining of the education of New Mexico’s public school students.
September 16th, 2017 · Comments Off on Trump might (MIGHT) not be leaving Paris Accords … Should we care?
The ‘breaking news’, according to an EU official and Wall Street Journal reporting, Donald Trump and @TeamTrump might act (yet again) in ways to piss off their #MAGA-frothing base. After announcing, in front of a sweating audience of fossil fools on the White House lawn, that the United States would be leaving the Paris Accords, Saturday’s breaking news is that this might not be the case.
The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement
This is amid the first major international meeting on the Paris Accords since Trump’s June announcement.
White House senior adviser Everett Eissenstat unveiled the U.S. plan, according to an official at Saturday’s gathering, as Ottawa, Beijing and Brussels accelerate their joint effort to minimize the fallout from a potential U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
Putting aside the mercurial nature of Donald Trump’s gaslighting and the incertitude that anything Trump or anyone from Team Trump says will remain firm, a question that we should ask is ‘so what?’
As many are reporting ‘relief’ that Irma wasn’t as bad as it could have been (even while recognizing that some 20% of Floridians are without electricity, the devastation in the Caribbean, and untold damages throughout Florida), let’s consider Hurricane Irma’s Accomplishments (see after fold for fuller list) that include:
185 mph lifetime max winds – tied with Florida Keys (1935), Gilbert (1988) and Wilma (2005) for second strongest max winds of all time in Atlantic hurricane.
Allen had max winds of 190 mph in 1980 – 185 mph lifetime max winds –
the strongest storm to exist in the Atlantic Ocean outside of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico on record –
185 mph max winds for 37 hours – the longest any cyclone around the globe has maintained that intensity on record.
The previous record was Haiyan in the NW Pacific at 24 hours
914 mb lifetime minimum central pressure – lowest pressure by an Atlantic hurricane outside of the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico on record –
3.25 day lifetime as a Category 5 hurricane – tied with Cuba (1932) for longest lifetime as Category 5
3 consecutive days as a Category 5 hurricane – the longest in the satellite era (since 1966)
– 8.50 major hurricane days – the 2nd most in satellite era (since 1966)
Generated the most Accumulated Cyclone Energy by a tropical cyclone on record in the tropical Atlantic (7.5-20°N, 60-20°W)
Generated more Accumulated Cyclone Energy than the first eight named storms of the Atlantic hurricane season (Arlene-Harvey) combined
Generated enough Accumulated Cyclone Energy to satisfy NOAA ACE definition for an average Atlantic hurricane season
Generated more Accumulated Cyclone Energy than 18 entire Atlantic hurricane seasons in the satellite era (since 1966)
I'm astounded by Irma’s long list of “accomplishments”. What a hurricane! https://t.co/nDMtMMgjNf
Oregon, Washington State, Montana, Canadian, …. Forest Fires burning with smoke clouds crossing the nation …
Forest fire smoke is pushing south from Canada ?? Chicago's northern suburbs. Milky white areas circled are not clouds, but wildfire smoke. pic.twitter.com/jJixvFVYRI
September 8th, 2017 · Comments Off on The morning after Back-to-School: Six points to explain climate change
Like 10s of millions of American parents, the month of September brings back to school night. Writ large, mine last night was what you can hope for: with one exception, what appear to be good to excellent teachers; positive statements about ‘the kids’ and atmosphere; and some positive feedback about your child. Tensions issues related to school funding, concern about how the parents will have to backfill to cover one lousy teacher, and …. but, again, about as good as it gets. Thus, the mindset was ‘high school’ when seeing an OutPostUtopia (Michael Jenkins) tweet this morning sharing a six-step discussion re climate change and severe weather that provides the sort of clarity that any/all who m
A straightforward climate science explanation that any Middle Schooler should understand
anaged to not fail a high school physics class can/should understand.
The discussion to the side summarized:
Sequence of cause & effects:
The carbon-energy economy is increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
That increased carbon dioxide is causing atmosphere AND ocean warming (and ocean acidification) globally.
Global warming is driving Arctic sea loss, retreating glaciers, and sea-level rise (warmer => more volume + melting glaciers/Greenland/Antarctica).
Global warming/climate change does not necessarily cause weather events.
Global warming can augment (make more severe) weather events.
Augmented weather events, therefore,
can be a real expression of climate change because
global warming of the atmosphere and oceans has augmented them.
The above is a defensible discussion which lays out a logical case that any with a modicum of education and (critically) an open mind to science can understand and absorb.
September 7th, 2017 · Comments Off on Irma: considering the worst …
The damage reports are coming in from Caribbean islands and the warnings are mounting for the Continental United States: Hurricane Irma could drive up the entire Atlantic Coast of Florida, a category 5 hurricane strike on Miami and the homes/work places of millions of American citizens. Prior to the first rain drops hitting Miami, people are already bandying about that this could turn out (seen predictions of odds from 5-20%) as the most expensive (human-climate enhanced/driven) natural disaster in U.S. history — potentially on the order of $300 billion of direct impacts (without, for example, dealing with the financial impacts of the quite possible (likely) collapse of coastal real estate in Florida if not across the United States and even globally).
While some might (secretly and/or openly) celebrate that Donald “global warming is a Chinese Hoax” Trump’s Mar-A-Lago lies directly in the storm’s path, the catastrophic nature of the potential impacts are nothing to joke about.
See all that blue? Essentially all of southern Florida would be under water with 10 feet of sea-level rise (SLR). While SLR is far from a perfect surrogate for storm surge impacts (storm surges are generally geographically limited (not that whole region) and temporarily short, unlike SLR’s (on human scale) permanence), it provides a window for understanding just how far saltwater might reach if Irma’s impacts on Florida are as bad as some fear it could be.
Consider this, the National Weather Service is already warning of “possible devastating impacts across south Florida …” with “locations [potentially] uninhabitable for weeks or months”.
Holy hell, @NWSMiami: "Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months."
The bill is mounting — in human lives, in money, in stressing society, in … — and Irma could add a massive increase to the mounting bill.
Those fighting climate action, denying climate change reality, often argue that ‘we can’t afford’ to invest perhaps $100-$200B per year to mitigate climate risks (with huge returns outside reduced risk) while we see ever mounting costs accruing from climate-related disasters and challenges.
Just from current catastrophes,
Harvey: $150B-$250B+
California Fires/Heat Wave: Unknown
Oregon/Montana/Washington State Heat Waves/Fires: Unknown
Irma: Potentially over $300B.
And, of course, this is ‘just’ counting direct US catastrophic events — ignoring disastrous situations around the world
The bills are coming in from our failure(s) to #ActOnClimate. Those bills will continue to mount … even as the imperative to #ActOnClimate mounts. Action — whether clean energy, energy efficiency, land-use changes, and/or — is required and the only path we have to gain any prospect of controlling how large tomorrow’s climate bills will become.
==============
UPDATEs:
Storm surge risk
Storm Surge Warning. MOST VULNERABLE are places bordering Biscayne Bay & inland from there. 10 feet ABOVE GROUND! pic.twitter.com/Ooo9mPu8Cq
Whether purposeful or not, Donald Trump manages to provide stunning, jaw-dropping moments and actions at a pace impossible for a reasonable person to track while attempting to maintain anything close to a normal life. Amid outrageous actions (like against the Dreamers & DACA), immoral and despicable commentary (such as emphasizing those “very fine people” who marched under Nazi flags in Charlottesville), criminal actions (Emoluments Clause, anyone), outrageous twitter distractions (commentary against media), etc, etc, etc, there are many items that can fly by without notice.
Bill Mckibben, in a tweet last night, sought to shine a spotlight on this the incredible (probably unconscious) disconnect:
1) Irma at 190 mph 2) Harvey at 54 " of rain 3) West ablaze 4) Record California heat 5) Donald Trump talking at an oil refinery pic.twitter.com/MxQylFbzVQ
While a rational and competent President, who put the interests of the nation and Americans above his own self-interest and self-absorption, would be focused on monitoring these disastrous situations across the nation and assuring the most effective Federal response to assistance to save lives and speed recovery, Trump is off promoting tax concepts that would (further) enrich the richest of society at the expense of everyone else (both today’s and tomorrow’s Americans).
When the science is (and has been for decades) eminently clear and incredible strong linking the burning of fossil fuels with climate change AND that human-driven (fossil-fueled) climate change creates circumstances for catastrophes and worsens them, the climate-science denying (“Chinese Hoax) “narcissistic maniac” occupying the White House is off promoting fossil foolish intensification of our use of oil, natural gas, and coal: e.g., Team Trump is working hard(est?) to foster conditions for even more and even worse climate catastrophes in the coming years and decades.
That rational and competent President, as well, would be asking the question:
(how) Can we reduce the risks of such catastrophes?
Drive toward a lower carbon (negative emissions) economy at an accelerated pace.
Adopt policies that foster better land use and agricultural practices (that lower carbon impacts, reduced methane emissions, etc …)
And …
(how) Can we reduce the impacts of future natural disasters — recognizing that human-driven climate change creates conditions for new “unprecedented” events and severity events for decades to come (even with the most aggressive efforts to act on climate)?
Learn lessons and create resiliency in our society (built environment and otherwise);
Invest so that mitigation, resiliency, and adaptation investments are optimized so that resiliency and adaptation investments, as much as possible, also contribute to climate change mitigation.
As Bill McKibben highlighted in yesterday’s stunning contrast between climate catastrophes and fossil-fuel promotion, as we are already aware in so many ways, Donald Trump is not that rational and competent President.
UPDATE: That contrast is even more stunning if you have the strength to listen to Trump’s speech.
Trump is bragging about pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement in the middle of a climate disaster: https://t.co/uovE4Pxyi4
bedbug infestations have spread over time in the Michigan city —which has grappled with lead-contaminated drinking water since 2014 — and the center’s past sessions attracted packed audiences. “People really do need this,” she said. “For low-income communities, it’s a really desperate situation.”
Just $20k, who cares … and, well, so what …?
John Konkus reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued. According to both career and political employees, Konkus has told staff that he is on the lookout for “the double C-word” — climate change — and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations.
Who is this Konkus? The Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Affairs at EPA with a career of Republican political (including lots with Trump’s presidential campaign) and administrative work. As to his academic background to be reviewing literally $billions of EPA grants? A BA in political science from the University of Maryland.
“The double c word” is clearly in the cross-hairs (though there is also research work being suppressed about impacts of mining, pesticides, … along with life-saving grants supporting, for example, deployment of clean stoves in developing nations) of eminent scientific authority Konkus.
At least some reacted, ‘well, she was awarded the grant, why bother to edit out the words’ (not asserting Weinstein is one of those) and that she shouldn’t do so because “this is what censorship looks like”—that she should simply ‘resist’ this odious recommendation.
With the news of Konkus’ focus on “the double C word”, it does look like the staff workers were seeking to protect Bowen’s (and others’) research from the Konkus political hack hacking. That email, in fact, might actually best be seen as ‘deep state’ efforts to protect substantive, valuable science funding from ‘the double C-word’ hack hacking.
“From sea to shining sea …” America the Beautiful tugs at the hearts of all patriots …
At this time, America the Beautiful is facing a painful reality of being flooded, scorched, and threatened from ‘sea to shining sea’ by climate catastrophes.
Houston is just starting to dry out from Hurricane Harvey’s 50 inch rain totals.
Something that all these events share … climate signals, signs (with scientific basis) that human-driven climate change is exacerbating the situation.
Climate catastrophes are happening not just From Sea to Shining Sea but across all the seas — massive flooding in South Asia (with thousands dead and millions displaced), mudslides in West Africa, drought in Italy and massive fires in Portugal, record low-levels of Arctic ice, melting Greenland, …
All too often, commentators will argue that “we must act now to avoid catastrophe …” Looking at flooded Houston and burning Los Angeles, it is far past time to face reality: we are already in catastrophe and feeling catastrophic impacts. (Consider what you might have thought would be ‘catastrophe’ in terms of climate impacts decades ago ..) Across the globe, human-driven climate change (AGW) is exacerbating, accelerating, worsening, amplifying weather events to make hard situations into horrible. And, the situation will get worse — no matter what — due to latent impacts (the time delay) from the pollution we’ve already pumped into the atmosphere.
What we — humanity — does have is a choice to act to reduce just how catastrophic those events and the future situation(s) will be, to reduce the risks of total calamity for human society.
Even as the occupant of the Oval Office declares climate change a “Chinese Hoax” and fills the US government with climate science deniers, reality is reality …
September 2nd, 2017 · Comments Off on For @NASA, @RealDonaldTrump proposes #climate #science denier
In another Friday dump, Team Trump’s choice for NASA:Representative Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), a true climate zombie. Here is material from his statement that called on President Obama to cut climate science funding to move it to weather research.
Global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with Sun output and ocean cycles.
Okay, I’m lazy. I’ll stick with Skeptical Science and climate science denial by the numbers. This is filled with multiple misnomers and misleading games.. First, while there are throughout geologic history, portions of the temperature records that “correlate with Sun output and ocean cycles”, this is a path toward misleading: no climate scientist asserts that natural change and natural cycles don’t exist, we are concerned about humanity’s ‘thumb’ on the scale. Right now, as we are seeing ever hotter global temperatures, Bridenstine’s ‘it’s the sun’ (Denialist item #3) is simply false as “the sun’s energy has decreased since the 1980s but the Earth keeps warming fasterthan before.”
During the Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D.—long before cars, power plants, or the Industrial Revolution—temperatures were warmer than today.
During the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1900 A.D., temperatures were cooler.
Sigh, #47. “The main drivers of the Little Ice Age cooling were decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. These factors cannot account for the global warming observed over the past 50-100 years. Furthermore, it is physically incorrect to state that the planet is simply “recovering” from the Little Ice Age.”
Neither of these periods were caused by any human activity
Okay, not going to address that because this is sort of misdirection since the points he is referring to are falsehoods. However, something to consider, there is scientific work (papers, studies) suggesting human impacts on the climate going back 10,000 years or more. (Not expert at this, but here is somewhere to start.)
If you’re visual and just ach to see Bridenstine’s climate science denial in action,
