Links to SacBee on NevCo "hard money", "culture of fraud"

June 5, Nevada County DA took 'hard money' loan favors
("Nevada County's hard money losses were particularly severe due to a deeply rooted culture of fraud, according to investors, convicted brokers and public records.")

June 6, 'Hard money' lending has sordid past in Nevada County
("Since 1991, four Nevada County brokers have gone to prison, four others have lost their licenses, and four borrowers have been either charged with or convicted of bilking investors. ... Hard money brokers operate under a weak, loosely monitored set of regulations riddled with loopholes and jurisdictional confusion and conflicts. ")

June 7, Editorial: Nevada County district attorney needs to resign

Global weirding in Calif., from Sat SacBee

"Expect the unexpected"; Researcher says climate change may be cooling California
""It's what I call global weirding," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "This has been a very strange year all over the planet."

What's going on?

First of all, this spring's weather is not unprecedented, just uncommon. California has had wet, cold spring weather before, notably in 1983, a year that produced record Sierra snows.

This year, the blame falls on a complex interaction between La Niña and another phenomenon called a negative Arctic oscillation, Patzert and others said.
...
One theory gaining traction is that climate change, in fact, may be to blame.

The theory was developed in several published papers by Judah Cohen, an atmospheric scientist in Massachusetts.

Cohen argues that ice melt in the Arctic has produced more snowfall across Siberia. All that snow creates a giant cold air mass that diverts the jet stream, contributing to the negative Arctic oscillation.
...
Colder and snowier winters caused by global warming? It may be one of the counterintuitive consequences of climate change, he said.

"We don't understand everything, and we don't understand how the different feedbacks affect different parts of the climate system," said Cohen, director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a private firm in Lexington, Mass. "It's very complicated. So we should expect the unexpected."

NY Times Bombshell: “The latest scientific research suggests” climate change is “helping to destabilize the food system”

See ThinkProgress for the story. Kudos to NYTimes journalist Justin Gillis - and his editor - for covering this.

Audubon meeting: Wind energy and effects on wildlife

Our local Audubon Society's meeting last night featured a talk examining wind energy's detrimental effects on wildlife - specifically, on bats and birds.

At one point the speaker showed this image:

(fine print: "Also, the bridge is out ahead")

...which seemed apropos since the talk didn't address the prospect of any effects on wildlife from this:

If global warming is real, then where is our spring?

Tom Tomorrow explains:

Gorilla Love Project microhouses for homeless

I found myself commenting about this project over at Sierra Voices (link); go there to read & comment please.

Ken Caldeira, reframing the climate problem. Ask your conservative friends this.

From 2009 in The Economist's Is it worth it? What economists have to say about mitigating climate change :

"Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution, puts the same point a different way. “If we already had energy and transportation systems that met our needs without using the atmosphere as a waste dump for our carbon- dioxide pollution, and I told you that you could be 2% richer, but all you had to do was acidify the oceans and risk killing off coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, risk melting the ice caps with rapid sea-level rise, shifting weather patterns so that food-growing regions might not be able to produce adequate amounts of food, and so on, would you take all of that environmental risk, just to be 2% richer?” He has, he says, often asked audiences this question; nobody has ever answered “yes”."

Mind vs. machine (on the Turing test)

From the March 2011 Atlantic, via Grist, read Brian Christian's Mind vs. Machine; it does bring to mind certain online communities and commenters...
Among the findings reported: computers are really good at starting & maintaining a fight.

Twisters & climate change, in NY Times

"...the consensus of fair-minded research — ignored by those who assume to know better in the Republican Congress — is that an earth warmed by an excess of man-caused carbon emissions will cause more weather extremes. Warm air holds more water vapor than cold air — that’s an axiom that a congressman with a set of talking points paid for by Exxon cannot wish away. Torrential flooding in all parts of the world could easily be part of a new phase brought on by just a few upticks in ocean temperatures. The forecast is simple: You ain’t seen nothing yet..."

- from Timothy Egan's Twister's Tale: Violent Weather and Common Sense NYTimes commentary piece

Data - Tornados in California, 1950-2011(so far)

In case you're curious - I wanted to see what kind of trend we've seen.

(ignore the big blue square that's thinking outside the box; that was an accident.)

Source data here - which, following more or less in Tamino's footsteps, I extracted from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center's archived data, and from 2000+, year-by-year data, available as annual reports/maps - e.g. nationally for 2011, or, just for CA, e.g. for 2011 so far (11)

Apparently tornado detection is more sensitive than it used to be, so the apparent increase in numbers for Calif. might not reflect an actual increase.

Tonight's Tea Party Patriot meeting, and a cultural difference

These people have patience far beyond mine; I am in awe.

Bryan Welch (of Utne & Mother Earth News)

At the New Life Eco Fest last weekend I caught the Saturday talk by Bryan Welch, publisher of magazines Mother Earth News, Utne Reader (e.g.: Get the Koch Brothers Out of Your Gear ), & Natural Home and Garden.

Ben Santer, on why it matters

My Ben Santer interview piece did air tonight, but without the "why it matters" section:

"Anyone who has kids, or grandkids, has some investment in the future; you really need to have some understanding of what the climatic shape of things to come is going to be like in the 21st century.

If you try to get that understanding from one person alone, or one source alone, you may be misinformed; and you may miss the opportunity to really have some say, in what kind of world you leave behind for your kids and grandkids. And that would be a great shame."

Year of the twister

"America's deadliest tornado season since 1953 continued its relentless onslaught of violent tornadoes yesterday. Numerous destructive and deadly tornadoes raked Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Arkansas..."
- Jeff Masters today (link)

It's not just in the midwest and the east.

"There's a tornado warning for Tehama County..."; "tornado warning for Butte County..."; "tornado warning in Nevada County..."

"The preliminary [U.S.] count for April 2011 is 875 tornados, which is more than three times as many as the previous record of 267 back in 1974. Yeah, more than three times as many. This year’s April count is only preliminary, and may well be revised downward as duplicate reports are identified. But it’s still one hell of a hockey stick."

See Tamino for the rest.

Also recommended for big picture: Bill McKibben's Keep Calm and Carry On

If you have a voluble climate-delayer friend, I have a request

In the Santer interview critique, someone suggested leading into it (and/or into other such interviews) with the voice of someone asserting one of the typical climate myths. And since the only climate-confused person I talk to these days, I don't see regularly...

I'm looking to make/get a recording of one of the following claims -

"But Al Gore's house..."
"Volcanos..."
"Humans emit just a tiny fraction..."
"We should be cautious, and wait until we know more..."

Yes, it likely won't be too hard to find someone who holds these beliefs & will share them, but if your friend wants some time in the limelight...