Time to fight back: confronting the climate cranks

How We Can Take on Those Who Are Sabotaging Our Response to the Climate Crisis
by Mark Hertsgaard; required reading for anyone with children.

At City Council meeting tonight: Nevada County Pedestrian Improvement Plan

Thanks to KNCO News, I learned that tonight's Nevada City City Council meeting will include "a presentation of the Nevada County Pedestrian Master Plan"; but as a pedestrian who provided input, I noticed it didn't reflect my concerns.

USFS report on past and future climate trends for Tahoe National Forest and Eldorado National Forest

A recent internal U.S. Forest Service report on climate change effects in Tahoe National Forest and neighboring Eldorado National Forest paints a picture of climate change already under way locally, projecting an extremely uncertain but likely more hazard-prone future for those living nearby and downstream - with a possible 9 degree F mean temperature rise which would equate to the Tahoe Basin's elevation dropping by 2500 feet, and with likely increased fire activity, shrublands spreading up into coniferous areas, and a possibly doubled maximum flow rate of Sierra rivers yielding "a substantial increase in flood risk in flood-prone areas of the Central Valley".

"The overwhelming sensation..."

The Union:

Sunny, warm week ahead - Forecasters are calling for clear skies and warm temperatures this week. Highs in the mid-60s are expected today and tomorrow... (link)

George Monbiot:

Edge's World Question Center 2011 - What Scientific Concept...

This year's question is up now, and is fantastic -
What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?

Teflon on the local far right

When checking Nevada County Voices I don't usually pay a visit to the far right, since I'd rather read people I can learn something from; but tonight I looked, and a post by contrarian Russ Steele caught my eye, & attracted me enough to try to leave a comment:

"Could you be wrong?"

Five minutes later, it had been deleted; which was also the fate of my 2nd attempt.

Saturday Wild & Scenic activist workshop - Tim DeChristopher

Five activist workshops today at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, of which I managed to see four. The following is from memory; corrections please.

The most powerful and inspiring session today was the final one, with Tim DeChristopher (see Peaceful Uprising).

Wild & Scenic on a budget

This weekend Nevada City welcomes visitors to SYRCL's Wild & Scenic Film Festival. It costs a fair amount of money, for those who didn't arrange to volunteer, but there are some events for the fiscally challenged:

Cutting through the climate messaging fog - Nov 2010 Nevada City Advocate column

A comment from Jon Shilling made me realize it's worth reprinting this column - which appeared in the October November 2010 issue of the Nevada City Advocate - on how to know what to think about climate change, when you hear Russ Steele saying one thing about climate, Al Stahler saying another, and Anna Haynes saying something else entirely. I need to incorporate (more) links in it though, to make it more useful.

Local blog commenters' argument tree? Anyone?

Once again yesterday, I spent too much time commenting at Jeff Pelline's blog, reiterating old points and having others reiterate theirs. This is tedious and counterproductive (and irksome) for the commenter, and has got to be nearly as tedious for the reader; so IMO it's time to innovate.
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Jan. 24 update: I got zero interest (in helping to work on this) from other commenters (maybe some like spending their day that way?), so am putting this project on the back burner.

NOAA(and now NASA): 2010 tied with 2005 for hottest year on record

According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average…

Excellent KVMR climate interview with "Rough Guide" author Robert Henson

Edited with followups - and podcast link - on Wed Jan 12, 13, 18.
There was an extremely fine interview on KVMR's science show Soundings today with UCAR's Robert Henson, author of the Rough Guide to Climate Change; it's available as a podcast.

For evangelical readers - relevance of climate change and climate action

People of faith generally give at least lip service to the concept of "good stewardship", but for some, that doesn't seem to translate to practice - for them, when push comes to shove, all other religious and lay imperatives seem to crowd that one out.

There's even a movement afoot to spread this view, to demonize the earth-concerned as "green dragons".

But the demonizers and the wider evangelical community might do well to revisit Revelation 11:18 -