Jesus Doesn't Buy "Inconvenient Truth"

An evangelical Christian in Seattle, Washington is spearheading a local campaign against "propagandist" Al Gore.

Setting aside the rich irony . . . here's the opener of the article:

Gore film sparks anger in Wash. school district
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- Frosty Hardiman is neither impressed nor surprised that "An Inconvenient Truth," the globalwarming movie narrated by former vice president Al Gore, received an Oscar nomination this week for best documentary.

"Liberal left is all over Hollywood," he grumbled a few hours after the nomination was announced.

Hardiman, a parent of seven in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has roiled the global-warming waters.

It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in her seventh-grade science class.

"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 said he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

OK, so, there it is: Let's not even talk about global warming because (1) the U.S. is the greatest nation on earth and (2) Jesus is coming. Hopefully the logical and doctrinal shortcomings of that argument are readily apparent.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of global warming, you can hardly argue that Gore's film should be banned in public schools. The film was screened widely and is - - for better or worse - - now part of the public debate. If Hardiman is that fretful that his child is going to be brainwashed by one showing of a film, he can simply borrow a copy from the Seattle Public Library and spend some time talking with his kid(s) about why he disagrees with the film-makers. Then - - gasp - - let his kid make up her own mind about where she stands.

Glaciers going with the Arctic Ice

Back in December there were articles about Arctic ice disappearing by 2040. Here's an more recent bit that suggests that our glaciers won't last much longer than the ice:

Experts: Alps glaciers will melt by 2050
VIENNA — Glaciers will all but disappear from the Alps by 2050, scientists warned Monday, basing their bleak outlook on mounting evidence of slow but steady melting of the continental ice sheets.

In western Austria's Alpine province of Tyrol, glaciers have been shrinking by about 3% a year, said Roland Psenner of the University of Innsbruck's Institute for Ecology.

And 2050 is a conservative estimate, he said: If they keep melting at that rate, most glaciers could vanish by 2037.

"The future looks rather liquid," he said.

. . .

In 2005, glacier thickness decreased by an average of 23 1/2 inches, and in 2004 by an average of 27 1/2 inches, the Swiss agency said, citing preliminary measurements. Since 1980, it said, Europe's glaciers have lost about 31 1/2 feet of ice. About 7 feet melted away in a single summer — 2003 — when a heat wave zapped much of Europe, said Michael Zemp, a glacier expert at the University of Zurich.

Later on the article points out that glaciers are one of our largest sources of fresh water. The disappearance of the glaciers isn't just cosmetic. It will affect stream and river levels worldwide and shift our reliance more towards groundwater pumping. Those who balk at changing proactively as a result of global warming need to reqlize that the change is coming, will-he nill-he.

Non-News: Global Warming Denialists are Industry Shills

This is non-news (everyone knows global warming denialists are industry shills), but interesting nontheless:

Exxon linked to doubters of warming
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest gasoline maker, spent $15.8 million since 1998 funding groups that reject scientific evidence of a human contribution to global warming, according to a report yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Exxon gave to 43 organizations promoting "uncertainties" about global warming to delay U.S. action to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, the report said. Exxon also successfully recommended climate advisers for the Bush administration, which rejected a global treaty to cut greenhouse gases in 2001 and instead called for voluntary reductions.

Among the biggest recipients of funding from Exxon were the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which advocates limited government regulation of business, and the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, a group started by Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris in 1993 to sow confusion over the dangers of second-hand smoke, the report said.

. . .

Irving, Texas-based Exxon pumps more oil than every member of OPEC except Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"Sound science" indeed. Thanks so much, Mr. Raymond, and my children thank you too. I think there is a special room in hell just for you.

Arctic Ice Shelf Collapses, Breaks Free

Hard on the heels of a recent prediction about the end of arctic ice comes news that a giant section of the Ayles Ice Shelf has broken loose.

Ice Mass Snaps Free From Canada's Arctic
Ice Shelf the Size of 11,000 Football Fields Snaps Free From Canada's Arctic, Scientists Say

TORONTO - A giant ice shelf has snapped free from an island south of the North Pole, scientists said Thursday, citing climate change as a "major" reason for the event.

The Ayles Ice Shelf all 41 square miles of it broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole in the Canadian Arctic.

Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and couldn't believe what he saw.

"This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years," Vincent said. "We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead."

The ice shelf was one of six major shelves remaining in Canada's Arctic. They are packed with ancient ice that is more than 3,000 years old. They float on the sea but are connected to land.

Some scientists say it is the largest event of its kind in Canada in 30 years and that climate change was a major element.

"It is consistent with climate change," Vincent said, adding that the remaining ice shelves are 90 percent smaller than when they were first discovered in 1906. "We aren't able to connect all of the dots ... but unusually warm temperatures definitely played a major role."

. . .

[Luke Copland, head of the new global ice lab at the University of Ottawa]said the speed with which climate change has effected the ice shelves has surprised scientists.

"Even 10 years ago scientists assumed that when global warming changes occur that it would happen gradually so that perhaps we expected these ice shelves just to melt away quite slowly," he said.

Derek Mueller, a polar researcher with Vincent's team, said the ice shelves get weaker and weaker as temperatures rise. He visited Ellesmere Island in 2002 and noticed that another ice shelf had cracked in half.

"We're losing our ice shelves and this a feature of the landscape that is in danger of disappearing altogether from Canada," Mueller said.

Earlier this week, President Bush's administration moved to recognize polar bears as endangered due to the extreme reduction in available ice floes where they fish.

Does anyone hear the alarm going off? It's time to wake up.

The End of Arctic Ice?

The Globe and Mail covers a new study predicting the end of summer ice at the north pole by 2040.

Arctic sea ice is retreating at such a rapid rate that north pole summers could be ice-free by 2040.

New research published in Tuesday's edition of Geophysical Research Letters indicates that the next few decades could produce dramatic changes that will drastically change the ecology of the far north.

Of course no one knows for sure if this is going to happen. Skeptics will readily point out that previous predictions on climate change have been inaccurate.

On the other hand, the skeptics began by saying that global warming was not really happening. Then they agreed that it was happening, but said it wasn't happening as fast as what the proponents of policy change were alleging. Now they agree that it is happening, and they also agree that it is happening as fast, if not faster, than what the proponents previously said, but, they now say, it's not really attributable to human activity. It's all part of a natural warming process that would not be slowed even if we ceased burning all forms of fossil fuel.

For my own part, I don't know if the proponents are right, I don't know if the skeptics are right, and frankly I don't really care. Let's pretend, for example, that you are driving your car down the road at 80 miles an hour. Up ahead you see two reflective dots. Some proponents in your back seat argue that the dots are a moose standing in the road. Some skeptics in the back seat theorize that it couldn't possibly be a moose, and that the most likely explanation is that it's a road sign. At this point you can (a) slow down until you figure out what the dots are; or (b) barrel on. Let's add this too: if you slow down, you will not get to where you are going quite as quickly; and if it's a moose and you don't slow down, you will crash your car and die. Let me think about that for all of .8 seconds: It's time to slow down, people.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, NASA this week announced plans for a permanent base on the Moon. Interesting thing, that. By 2060, I am guessing, it won't matter if you are a kid growing up on the Moon or on Earth, you will still have to put on a spacesuit to go outside to play.

Gasoline Prices Approaching "Minimally Acceptable"

I've long said that the price of gasoline is too low until it results in consumers changing their consumption habits. Since gasoline started its most recent climb, I've seen precious little except yammering and handwringing about "skyrocketing" prices. Today's New York Times online and the Pew research it cites is the first time I've seen a discussion that rising prices are actually beginning to curb consumption. In my mind, that means we are just barely nosing in to where gasoline prices should be:

Gas Prices Alter Habits of Many, but Far From All - New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON

DENVER, Aug. 8 — Car owners across the country braced themselves on Tuesday for another smack in the face at the gasoline pump, as the shutdown of the giant Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska rippled through energy markets and consumer psyches.

But Justin Ogle, a newly minted light-rail commuter, was calm. Mr. Ogle and his wife, Lauren, bought a new home two months ago, partly to be near the train tracks.

“Rising gas prices are going to force us to be more efficient,” Mr. Ogle, 29, said, looking up from the newspaper as his train rattled toward downtown Denver, where he works as an architect.

Americans are deeply divided in their responses to high gasoline prices, as they are on so many other things, including politics, class and culture. Many say they are using less gasoline, but for every Mr. Ogle, there may well be a Glennis Claxton. Ms. Claxton, a 26-year-old student at Rice University, does not own a car, but she said she had gotten so fried by riding the sweltering buses in Houston that she was thinking of buying one, even with the price of gas what it is.

Researchers, pollsters and ordinary Americans in interviews on Tuesday said they saw no broad national experience or commonality of sacrifice when it came to gasoline, even when the nation endured a jolt like the one from Alaska.

. . .

In the Pew Research survey of 1,182 Americans — 1,048 of them drivers — 55 percent said they were driving less because of the recent increases in gasoline prices. The poll, taken from June 20 to July 16, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Yet Americans’ overall gasoline appetite has barely budged. Total use this year is up about one-half percent to 1 percent compared with 2005, according to federal figures — a slower rate of growth than in the past, but hardly the mark of a nation with its foot fully on the brake.

There are anecdotal glimpses of a drop in driving. The number of passengers taking rail service in Los Angeles County in June was up 11 percent from last year. And the number of cars passing through the Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70 in the Colorado Rockies, which has been rising slightly since 2002, fell slightly in July compared with the same time last year. The decrease is the first since 2001, according to the State Department of Transportation.

. . .

Researchers at Pew say the pattern of consumers using less when high prices linger has been seen before, in the gasoline price spikes of the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Per capita consumption of gasoline has fairly consistently mirrored the average price per gallon since at least 1977, falling when prices increased, rising when prices fell, according to the Pew study, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.

Other experts say the nation’s shifting economic, demographic and urban terrain in recent years — greater disparity of rich and poor than in the 1970’s, and more transportation options than a generation ago, including mass transit rail lines in more cities and hybrid cars — is making this spike different.

. . .

Still, as the article points out, the evidence is mostly anecdotal at this point. So I'm not yet ready to say I like where the prices are. But it's getting closer.