“Block That Metaphor” by Steve npinker [- a review of “Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea” by George Lakoff (The New Republic; 2006.10.19)] – http://www.powells.com/review/2006_10_19
“In a 70-28 vote yesterday, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB 368 (PDF), a bill that encourages science teachers to explore controversial topics without fear of reprisal. Critics say the measure will enable K-12 teachers to present intelligent design and creationism as acceptable alternatives to evolution in the classroom. If the bill passes, Tennessee would join Louisiana as the second state to have specific ‘protection’ for the teaching of evolution in the classroom.”
“Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” by James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato (arXiv:1105.0968v1 [physics.ao-ph]; 2011.05.05) – http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.0968
Abstract: Milankovic climate oscillations help define climate sensitivity and assess potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1{\deg}C warmer than in the Holocene. Goals to limit human-made warming to 2{\deg}C and CO2 to 450 ppm are not sufficient — they are prescriptions for disaster. Polar warmth in prior interglacials and the Pliocene does not imply that a significant cushion remains between today’s climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth today is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate additional warming. Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Satellite gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. The emerging shift to accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth’s temperature has returned to at least the Holocene maximum. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.
Prof. Richard Muller of Berkeley, a physicist who has gotten into the climate skeptic game, has been leading the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, an effort partially financed by none other than the Koch foundation. And climate deniers — who claim that researchers at NASA and other groups analyzing climate trends have massaged and distorted the data — had been hoping that the Berkeley project would conclude that global warming is a myth.
Instead, however, Professor Muller reported that his group’s preliminary results find a global warming trend “very similar to that reported by the prior groups.”
…Just a few weeks ago Anthony Watts, who runs a prominent climate denialist Web site, praised the Berkeley project and piously declared himself “prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong.” But never mind: once he knew that Professor Muller was going to present those preliminary results, Mr. Watts dismissed the hearing as “post normal science political theater.” And one of the regular contributors on his site dismissed Professor Muller as “a man driven by a very serious agenda.”
…As worldwide population increases by 40 percent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets …
“A Changed Climate Skeptic?” (an interview by Elizabeth Dickinson; Foreign Policy 2010.09.03) – http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/03/interview_bjorn_lomborg: Bjorn Lomborg has long infuriated environmental activists with his contrarian views on global warming. Has he now embraced their cause?
“Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003” by Peter A. Stott, D. A. Stone & M. R. Allen (Letters to Nature; Nature 432, 610-614 (2 December 2004) | doi:10.1038/nature03089; Received 21 May 2004; Accepted 5 October 2004) – http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7017/abs/nature03089.html
Abstract: The summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at latest ad 15001, 2, 3, 4, and unusually large numbers of heat-related deaths were reported in France, Germany and Italy5. It is an ill-posed question whether the 2003 heatwave was caused, in a simple deterministic sense, by a modification of the external influences on climate—for example, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate. However, it is possible to estimate by how much human activities may have increased the risk of the occurrence of such a heatwave6, 7, 8. Here we use this conceptual framework to estimate the contribution of human-induced increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the risk of the occurrence of unusually high mean summer temperatures throughout a large region of continental Europe. Using a threshold for mean summer temperature that was exceeded in 2003, but in no other year since the start of the instrumental record in 1851, we estimate it is very likely (confidence level >90%)9 that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave exceeding this threshold magnitude.
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