FYI, a new local climate communication experiment

2011 update: This experiment was not very productive.

In this blog I've critiqued past climate-related communication from KVMR science correspondent / The Union science columnist Al Stahler, but continuing this effort seems fruitless - he's got an audience of thousands, I don't. And since neither he nor I have any formal climate science expertise, it looks like the blind critiquing the blind, epistemologically speaking. So it just bounces off.

So, I want to try something different - I've asked Al if I can put up his latest Union column (it's not yet online AFAIK; it's titled "Climate is Complex", & conveys the themes & memes that you'd expect from that title) and ask those with climate science expertise to critique it.

Waiting forGot permission; stay tuned.

Nevada-County's-a-small-world department

It turns out that the woman who's been coming in to help care for my relative is married to one of Nevada County's earliest bloggers.

He's a lucky man - his wife is attractive, warm, friendly, extremely patient and extremely attentive.

Maddow shows where delusions come from

Rachel Maddow - with examples, showing consequences - on how these folk make their own reality...

One hundred thousand years

From Grist, The Climate Post: Earth will take 100,000 years to recover from the midterms’ effects on climate

...Nothing closes the window of opportunity on peaking greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 quite like a new of speaker of the House who once expressed outright disbelief about the veracity of scientists' claims regarding the threat of climate change
...
Geologists published a paper this week suggesting the Earth will take 100,000 years to recover from the effects of the global warming resulting from our current emissions trajectory.

When you vented your outrage at the ballot box, maybe wasn't The Man you were sticking it to.

Koch Network tie - via plane - to Tea Party Patriots

"Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin have been "flying for freedom" and "landing for liberty" across the country in a private jet they've dubbed "Patriot One"... which belongs to one "Raymon F. Thompson, and he's the founder and former CEO of Semitool"(*) ... who shows up (as Ray Thompson) on the list of attendees of the Kochtopus network gathering in Aspen last June.

(h/t Frank)

Judith Curry on our own Russ Steele: not a climate skeptic

It was Dr. Curry in haste, perhaps, but all the same, it does not evince an awareness of the glaringly obvious. Her words (reprinted here):

"Re the “Hockey Stick Illusion,” here are some blogospheric reviews, not from identified “skeptics” (as far as i can tell):
Seth’s Blog
Klimazweibel
NC Media Watch
Facts Plus Logic
Discovery News"

Mother Jones on Meckler's TPP private jet trips

From yesterday, A Secret Tea Party Donor Revealed
("Movement leaders are jetting across the country in a donated plane to rally the tea party troops. Meet the deep-pocketed GOP donor who owns "Patriot One.")

(Said deep-pocketed donor is nonlocal, a fellow in Montana - or at least that's where the plane is registered.)

GV Chamber Prop 23 debate cancelled

Got a call from the Chamber that they're cancelling the breakfast. Just so you know...

Bill Gates votes with wallet: No on Prop 23, to the tune of $700k

...according to MapLight.

Bombshell: Health insurance, banking, oil industries met with Koch, Chamber, Beck to plot 2010 election

MEMO: Health insurance, banking, oil industries met with Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck to plot 2010 election
This does appear to meet the definition of "right-wing conspiracy".

"It’s going to be a terrible wake-up call" - Jeff Masters on climate change

Al Stahler on KVMR interviewed Weather Underground's Jeff Masters just now; and from what I heard, no Qs were asked about climate change, and Masters only briefly touched on it.

So you likely don't know his views - here they are, from a recent Yale Climate Media Forum profile:

"Masters considers himself different from most meteorologists, many of whom he says are unreasonably skeptical of climate change science. He says he thinks their skepticism stems in part from bachelors degree meteorology students’ not being required to study climatology or climate science as part of their formal degree requirements.

Masters says he believes that the conclusions of the IPCC report are “genuine, valid, and probably understated.” And he is critical of what he sees as well orchestrated and well funded climate misinformation campaigns.

“They’re able to persuade even intelligent people with a background in meteorology” that climate change isn’t occurring, he said. “It’s going to be a terrible wake-up call when the climate becomes unstable, and we’ll kick ourselves for being resistant to cutting our use of fossil fuels.”

“The ignorance and greed that human society is showing in this matter will be to our ultimate detriment and possible destruction,” he says.

He urges his 14-year-old daughter to educate herself on climate change. “It will be the defining issue of their generation,” he says. ...
...
He plans to continue being “a spokesperson for the best science we have on what the planet is doing and where’s it is headed.”

(Sorry for the shouting; but how to reach resistant ears?)

Also, Al did ask about modeling, and Masters spoke about weather models' variability and uncertainty; but he didn't present the distinction between modeling for short-term prediction - weather - and modeling for long-term prediction - climate: the latter is *not* sensitive to initial conditions, so it doesn't suffer from the flakiness of weather predictions. Paging Jeff Masters - this is something a *lot* of people don't grasp.

I'll ask him to weigh in on this, and report back.

New Film Shows How Corporate America is Faking a Grassroots Revolution

I'm looking forward to this one. Details here; trailer below.

Why won't CABPRO provide its Employer ID number? Who are its clients?

The executive director and at least two board members of the Nevada County group CABPRO - California Association of Business Property & Resource Owners - are remarkably cagey about giving out the most basic information about their group.

Executive director Martin Light and local attorney and ex-candidate Barry Pruett have said CABPRO's a 501(c)(4); but the IRS has no record of this. On Oct. 4 I mailed a request to inspect their "tax exempt status" documents, left a phone message, and taped a copy of my request to the office door; I've heard nothing back.

Of the multiple phone messages I've left with the CABPRO office, none have been returned. Of the ten times or more that I've stopped by the office during working hours, the Closed sign has always been up.

While executive director Light had invited the SBC's Steven Frisch to "drop by" the office when Frisch was in town, the office was closed - and locked, and dark - when Frisch arrived at the date and time he'd announced he was coming. Two times.

I asked CABPRO Report blogger Russ Steele who might have information about the group, since phone calls to the organization weren't returned and Steele himself professed ignorance.

He suggested the board of directors.

I was able to reach two of them, Chuck Shea and Kim Janousek (Ms. Janousek is also CABPRO's agent, according to Cal. Sec of State records ); but they expressed displeasure at being phoned, wouldn't provide information about the group, and didn't consider it any of their business that their executive director wasn't returning phone calls.

I've sent a letter to the IRS suggesting that they look into this group's status.

If CABPRO is in fact a for-profit group - as a former executive director has stated, and as the 1997 National Center for Public Policy Research "green pages" lists it - who are its clients?

If it doesn't have an Employer ID number, who pays its staff and management?

Fact Checking CARB's Mary Nichols re “Nevada County worst (rural) ozone in the nation

In short: The lady - doubted by some (Steele, KPruett) - was correct.

In the aftermath to last month's CARB Chair Mary D. Nichols talk on AB32, Kim Pruett and Russ Steele wanted evidence for her assertion that Nevada County's air quality was the worst of any rural county in the U.S. and worse than any region nationally outside of California.

I offered to look into it, which entailed a) asking her office for the reference & b) getting stymied when looking into it myself, by not looking into the document that turned out to hold the rankings.

But CARB came through, in the person of a Mr. Chris Bowman:

"In recent years, the American Lung Association has ranked Nevada County as the most ozone-polluted rural area in the nation -- and smoggier than any city outside of California and Texas. The rankings come from the ALA's annual State of the Air reports...
In 2007, for example, you'll see (p. 24) that Nevada County ranked as the 13th most ozone-polluted county in the nation. This year, Nevada County ranked 8th (p. 16).
What's striking, of course, is that Nevada County has but a fraction of the population of every higher ranking county -- including El Dorado, Tulare and Kern, where the highest ozone readings are in urban areas such as El Dorado Hills, Placerville, Visalia and Bakersfield.
The disparity begs explanation. I went searching for answers seven years ago as a reporter for The Sacramento Bee and wrote a story on what I learned...

(Thank you Chris.)

From the aforementioned 2010 A.L.A. air quality report (pdf), p. 16, the nation's "worst ozone" county rankings are:

1. San Bernardino
2. Riverside
3. Kern
4. Tulare
5. Los Angeles
6. Fresno
7. El Dorado
8. Nevada
   

A couple of details: our county's population size is just over half of the least-populated "worse" county, El Dorado, with which we're almost tied for bad air at 45 vs 47 (weighted average of #unhealthy high ozone days, 2006-2008). And #1 San Bernardino, with 20x more people, had 3x more bad ozone days.

Koch Tea Party ties, caught on video

From (Astro)Turf Wars: How Corporate America Faked a Grassroots Revolution:

A highlight at 2:40 -
"Our grassroots efforts are engaged, they're energized, and they're ready to fight for their freedom."
More highlights here.