A question for Anthony Watts, but no help yet in getting it answered

I'd like to add Chico-based climate inactivist Anthony Watts's academic background to his SourceWatch and Wikipedia pages, but Watts was unwilling to provide this information. So I left a comment over at Russ Steele's blog, noting that his blog displayed Watts's "World Climate Widget" and asking if he could help get this information; but my comment was deemed off topic and deleted, and Russ said in email that he does not know and is not willing to help find out.

So, if anyone knows when and where Anthony Watts got his academic training in climate science and/or meteorology, could you please share this information?

My "behind climate inactivism" research; status and location

I have spent many moons digging (extremely inefficiently, I'm sorry to say, with much time spent in blind alleys, off in the weeds, cowering under the couch, you name it...) behind a few of the "pellets" of climate disinformation that have been spread to, and spread by, the climate denial-and-delay community.

I've written about them here at Daily Kos and here at TPM Cafe. They're not conclusive, they're not done, and those of you who want hard and fast proof, rather than documentation of investigations-in-progress, will find the browsing elsewhere to be far more rewarding; I'm still working on them.
They're not conclusive, they're not done, and they're not all that great. But we do what we can, if we feel it's a world worth saving, and this is something I have to do.

Resources for the perplexed, on global warming

(this is primarily for Nevada County residents)
Updates are in italics.

So, you listened to Robert C. Balling Jr. (a speaker recommended by what Real Climate calls "the notorious "Heartland Institute" that we have commented on previously") on KVMR Tuesday night, he sounded reasonable, and you're confused.

Who can you trust? Is he right, that the only trustworthy way to know the state of the science on climate change is to read the IPCC report?

um, no.
Sure, you can, but that's not how we acquire our (public) understanding of science in other areas, and it doesn't have to be how you do it here either. You're certainly welcome to delve into the science, the back-and-forth on evidence for this assertion and that (and I can suggest some sites to help you in doing so, e.g. Skeptical Science), but the highest return-on-investment, if you've got 5 minutes for learning about this topic, is (in my opinion) to pick the right "network of trust".

Free-market (anti-regulation) ideologues backed by coal interests, such as the Heartland Institute (for which Dr. Balling is a speaker) aren't going to give you an unbiased view of climate science. They're the national equivalent of CABPRO.

So who can you trust?
The issue is, what does the science tell us? And the best, cleanest, most untainted fastest way for you to find this out, is to go to the websites of prestigious science institutions, and see what *they* tell us. Fortunately, most of them do now have sections on their website devoted to climate change.

The Royal Society of London has been publishing for 150 years; their section on climate change is here.

Nature is the top ranking science journal; their section on climate change is here.

Scientific American has been publishing science for nonscientists, for decades; here's one article about climate from them (no general intro on their site, that I could see)

Science News has also been publishing science for nonscientists, for decades; their section on climate change is here (alas, it's not a general intro, it looks to be just a list of their latest climate-related articles).


UCSD Provost and historian of science Naomi Oreskes did a classic study of the climate science literature, finding a consensus - see this post about it from the climatologists' blog RealClimate.
(if you want climate science from the horses' mouths, RealClimate is the place to go - these guys are the real thing.)

And if you want to grasp the science for yourself, try her
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We're Not Wrong? (PDF)

And - in case you're wondering why the public has been confused about the state of climate change science for the last 20 years - there has been a concerted effort, by the fossil fuel interests, to cloud this issue and manufacture doubt in your own mind, since doubt is paralyzing and delaying action is their goal. See Ross Gelbspan's Snowed and Mooney's Some Like It Hot; Sharon Begley in Newsweek has also covered this (The Truth About Denial), also other magazines.
(A book that'll open your eyes, btw, is Doubt is their Product, by David Michaels, documenting the "product defense industry" - where there's money to be made in delaying new regulations, there's a company-for-hire working to achieve that goal)

And keep your eyes open - if all goes well, NCTV will soon be airing a talk by Dr. Oreskes about the disinformation effort.

Climatologist Jim Hansen - who saw this coming 20 years ago, and has perhaps the best track record of anyone - has said that the most important lifestyle change you can make to fight global warming is to become politically active (on this issue) and hold the politicians accountable.

So - please consider that, whenever you put out your recycling.


and, in general, on all sorts of issues you can do surprisingly well at grasping the reality, *without* looking at the underlying data; you can make intelligent judgments based on higher-level factors. One of the best things I've ever read online is Daniel Davies' One Minute MBA - Avoiding Projects Pursued By Morons 101 ("business schools...do often feel like the most collossal waste of time and money, but they occasionally teach you the odd thing which is very useful indeed...")

you might also google
wonderingmind42 video
and see what Greg Craven has to say, about what we should choose to do. He's entertaining, he's humble, and he's clear.
(he's a high school science teacher)

And if you want to keep aware of climate news etc, there's warming101.com, my blog aggregator for reputable commentary about climate change.

Another resource - Scienceblogs.com - is a nexus for intelligent science commentary by scientists.

Logicalscience.com is good site for more information, including lists of professional scientific organizations (i.e., not "think tanks", which are really PR shops) that have issued "consensus" statements about climate change, and the statements they've issued.

Hope this helps. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment, or else stop by and talk sometime - I'm in Java John's on Broad St, many mornings, and would love to discuss this.

Does it matter? Yes, it does -

"Climate scientists who grapple with this every day ... we see where it's headed. We understand it very well.

"I think the public needs to know, straight in their face, that you can give up on civilization as we know it. This is what I'm trying to get across in the book. Do we actually give a s--- for future generations?"

Q for climate bloggers - why *not* give Heartland spokesmen airtime?

Our local community radio station featured Robert C. Balling Jr. as a guest Tuesday night, for a call-in. I had a very interesting talk with their news director about it yesterday, that I'm still chewing on.

But I'm wondering, ye with collective wisdom -

How would you explain, pithily, to someone who values free expression of divergent views, wants his listeners to be exposed to a variety of views and to chew on the ideas and evidence for themselves, and knows that the climate science, on what the future effects will be, is *not* monolithic -

... that bringing a Heartland speaker on to discuss global warming science - a climate scientist who's published in peer reviewed journals, who says he's not a denialist, he just has different views on how strong an effect increasing CO2 will have - doesn't serve the station's listeners?

For the purpose of this exercise, assume your word carries as much weight as Joe Blow's down the street.

Note: Please comment *only* if you share the mainstream view that climate change is happening, the evidence strongly indicates humans are causing it, and it's urgent that we address it now - comments from the fringe *will* be deleted.

also - where can I find the "ontogeny of climate inactivism" scale? It's basically this, right?:
1. It's not happening
2. It's might be happening, but it's not us
3. It's happening, it's us, but it won't be too bad
4. It's happening, it's us, it'll be bad, but it'll be cheaper to leave it for our children to fix
5. Nothing we can do about it, since here comes China

Robert C. Balling Jr, the day after

Dec 10 update: partial response from Dr. Balling (he says he wasn't paid to do the KVMR call-in) below.
----------
You know how you always realize afterwards, what you should have said?

Fortunately in this day&age we have email; so I've sent this to Dr. Balling:

Subject: A couple of leftover Qs from KVMR Q&A last night

Hello again Dr. Balling, and my apologies for not having been more prepared, last night. Not only did I waste your time and KVMR's, I probably sounded like an idiot... sorry.

Could you give me a rough estimate, please, of your yearly income from sources other than your university salary? - i.e. from Heartland, the Greening Earth Society, other such organizations, speaking engagements, etc?

And who pays you to do public outreach such as last night's KVMR call-in?

Thanks much -
Anna Haynes PhD
ncfocus.blogspot.com

--------------

Dec.10 update - I hadn't received a response, so yesterday I sent this:

Hello again Dr. Balling, I'm not sure my first email reached you.

Could you tell me please, who pays you, and how much, to do a radio call-in appearance like the one you did for KVMR last month?

Thanks very much -
Anna Haynes

He responded

That's easy -- $0.00. I have done many radio appearances over the years, and my total is still $0.00. I have done TV appearances, and the total is $0.00.