"Climate Change - Doubts, Denials, Scepticism, and Politics"

[macdoc]

Yes thar's what the VC Doerr called for a million little Manhattan projects on energy and he HAS put his money where his mouth is....
When the VCs are pouring money in you KNOW there is a boom coming that will dwarf anything previous....

the odd thing about this one - it's already funded.

Fossil energy is a $7 trillion business.....all the upstarts want a slice

we are all paying the likes of the Saudi's trillions already...I'd rather keep those funds at home...

[JimC]

Yes thar's what the VC Doerr called for a million little Manhattan projects on energy and he HAS put his money where his mouth is....
When the VCs are pouring money in you KNOW there is a boom coming that will dwarf anything previous....

the odd thing about this one - it's already funded.

Fossil energy is a $7 trillion business.....all the upstarts want a slice

we are all paying the likes of the Saudi's trillions already...I'd rather keep those funds at home...

Especially as a good slice of them goes to fund a particularly virulent brand of fundamentalist islam...

[macdoc]

Interesting point how fundie Islam and the terrorism associated with it might change with reduced oil billions to squander.
Certainly the security aspect of energy supply might settle things....Japan started the war in the Pacific over oil and there is an argument for it being the cause of the US engagement in the Middle east.

[Fact-Man]

^^^^^^

I'm really thinking of my home country Australia, where there is so much opportunity to run both large and small scale solar power, with enough political will and tax concessions to get the ball rolling...

But I must admit, neither the present government or the opposition fill me with much confidence, and the Greens are mostly run by technology fearing luddites who think that crystals have healing energy...

I want a hard-nosed, pragmatic, techno-savvy enviromentalist party, but I doubt I'm going to get it...

My apologies, I just sort of assumed you were a Yank.

There were a few Aussies at RDNet who participated in the GW threads there so we have some idea as to the difficulties you face, especially as regards coal development.

It appears you face a big uphill battle.

[Fact-Man]

Good call, good analogy;

if the wake up shock occurs...

And, to harp on my point, they didn't do economic modelling, they started fucking building tanks and planes!

The wakeup shock's almost bound to occur. It won't of course come in the form of a bombing raid. it will come in the form of progessively worse climate conditions, increasingly turbulent and chaotic weather, water issues from changing patterns of precipitation, stark losses in the cryosphere, and myriad other conditions.

It's hard to know whether there will ever be some culminating event in the biosphere, but tipping points do loom.

I expect the wakeup call will raher take the form of some notable leader or group of leaders standing before the masses telling them that crunch time has arrived and we have to act, period, that we have to go on a war footing and get the job done. And they'll have a deteriorated climate and much better science to back up their case. And as a matter of fact I don't think this will happen until their case becomes undeniable, and again I'm predicting that will occur in the 2020-2025 time frame.

It will take a very strong and charismtic leader or group of leaders to pull that off, but tough times have a way of producing such leaders. We're going to need the very best of them.

Now, if we can just keep Senator James Inhof from throwing our best climatologist's in prison, we might get there (!).

I'm glad you appreciate the analogy that the beginning of War 2 and its ensuing national effort provides. I am of the mind that the spirit that drove us then remains alive in sufficient numbers of us to drive us once again to achieve e great things, but we will need great leadership to rekindle that spirit.

Keep smiling!

[Fact-Man]

I did get of to a bad start, and I offer my apologies to fact-man for that.
What set me off was the admonitions in the OP about "No denial here! No-no! We must all agree about points one through nine" that pissed me off, on top of the other stress of the last few days, and I read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF.

Interestingly, though the thread did invite the creation of another thread for purposes of discussing skepticism, which you in fact did create, and here we are in it.

This very distinction was hammered out at RDF and we did end up there with three threads on GW and climate change, just as we now have three identical threads here. And the skeptic thread at RDF was a very robust affair and was indeed much, much longer than the other two, probably longer than the other two combined. I don't recall ever seeing any posts from you in that thread, assuming your user handle was the same there as it is here, which I understand may not be the case. But nevertheless, there was ample opportunity at RDF for members to voice skepticism and/or denial and plenty of memnbers did exactly that.

I think MacDoc figured out that the skeptics thread at RDF was 100 pages in length.

Hence I fail to see how you "read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF." There was a skeptics thread at RDF, and as I've noted it was the most used and most robust of all three threads on the subject in that forum.

When we dealt with the question at RDF and tried to figure out what a good logical breakdown of the discussion might be we came up with three threads, 1) reporting on the science, 2) discussions the science and its policy implications, and 3) discussing skepticism and denialism.

A lot of work by a lot of people went into making that decision and arriving at what, in the end, turned out to be a very workable three-thread structure. It definitely satisfied all the needs that had been expressed regarding the best way to structure things.

When we came here, I think MacDoc decided that the best place to start was to duplicate RDF's three thread structure, which had worked so well. He asked me to create the "policy implications" thread, which I did, while he created the science reporing thread and we left the idea of a third or skeptics thread open to see if there was a demand for it.

That's why in the OP of the "policy implications" thread I started this statement was included:

I would prefer that doubts or denials of that body of science not be debated here. Sceptical or denialist debate may be made the topic of another thread anyone may create should they wish.

which was an open invitation for yourself or anyone to create a skeptics thread, which you then proceeded to do, but only after dropping a bomb on my OP.

I felt more at home here, and thought I would be more likely to get a word in, because over there (it seemed to me the last time I tried to post in a CC thread) that anyone who doesn't completely toe the AGW Party line (even just a "yes, but...") is immediately shouted down by a pack of rabid wolves and dissed as completely ignorant of all science in all it's forms. The peanut gallery then chips in with a flurry of ad-homs, they pat each other on the back, then the wannabe Cali's step in with links to 23,971 peer-reviewed papers and say "See: Proof! Go away and don't come back until you're read it!". Because unlike the original version, they can't "Blind them with science" or construct a valid argument, so they BURY the poor fucker in cut&paste science for DARING to say "Yes, but...".

Well, you're exaggerating here.

The skeptics thread at RDF was home to several denialists and skeptics who persevered there literally for years, Zappi, Jij, Collegavanerik, JohnBrandt, Egrey, AM, and Luis Diaz, among others. The so-called "pack of rabid wolves" to which you allude didn't slow these folk down for a minute. Had you joined in you'd have had plenty of allies.

I won't say it wasn't rancorous at times or that members didn't give the moderator Gallstones a run for her moderating money, it certainly did become turbulent and angry and harsh from time to time, sometimes even for extended periods, but Gallstones managed to keep it generally in line, handing out more than a few month-long banishments to members on both sides of the issue.

Part of the problem in that thread was the repetition of already debunked arguments, Zappi was particualrly guilty of this transgression, and Jij wasn't far behind him. Can you understand how such repetitions can become frustrating to those on the other side of the issue? How many different times does an argument or a case have to be shot down? It seems once ought to be enough.

And perhaps especially when the skeptic/denialist community has been unable to proffer any peer-reviewed science that explains the warming that's been observed. AGW science does explain it, the denialosphere has failed to do so. There are no countervailing theories to AGW and what few that have been offered, e.g., natural variability, the sun's intensity, cosmic rays, water vapour, have all been shot down.

It has become something of a cliche over at RDF, because fundies keep saying it, but in some cases it is true: To some people, science (especially the science of climate change) is a religion. They appear to have complete and utter faith in something they don't understand, and they act like science has all the answers.

Do you have faith that the jetliner you're about to climb aboard to fly off to Rio will actually get you there safe and sound? I can't think of anyone who would board such a jetliner without that kind of faith, yet few of them have any idea of the aeronautical science that underpins a jetliner's ability to do what it does.

I don't think that's any kind of religious faith at all, it's merely a reflection of the airplane's track record and the track record of commercial aviation.

We aren't and can't or won't all be scientists; at some point we all place faith in science and we do so largely on its track record. Medical patients do this routinely, subjecting themselves to medical procedures about which they have no clue of the science upon which they are based.

The idea that climate science was a new "religion" was put out there by the denialosphere ... as a means of denigrating the science and those who adhered to it. I always thought i was kind of funny that this charge would be levied on an atheist site, of all places. It was pure demonization.

People like that piss me off for being as ignorant as they accuse me of being, just for saying "yes, but..."
In the face of behaviour like that, I have rolled my eyes and bitten my tongue. I thought it would have been different here. My mistake.

I don't think it's a "mistake" at all and the reason I don't is because I'm convinced that if you post cogent arguments agaist AGW in this thread they will be taken seriously and seriously considered. And the truth is there's a Nobel awaiting anyone who does develop a scientific explanation for the warming we've observed that's not AGW.

It does however take some familiarity with the issue to do this, one has to know which arguments have already been debunked for example, one has to know AGW science pretty well and have some undertanding of where its weak spots may be. That's a fairly tall order but I'm the last guy who will claim it isn't possible.

I think the best approach is when you run across an argument you think has merit in debunking AGW to first throw it out there as a question, rather than as an assertion. "I ran across this paper and it appears to me it debunks AGW, has it been discussed? Is it holding water? Can it be trusted? Is my source reliable? Then see what you get by way of response and carry on from there. That is, of course, a non-confrontional approach and is, rather, a collegial one.

Note that I did not accept the apology you proferred at the beginning, not because I don't think it's worth accepting but because I don't think it was necessary in the first place. I can and do appreciate the idea of it and the impetus that drove you to making it, but I just don't think you owed anyone an apolgy for anything.

I chalk these things up to the "heat of the battle," so to speak, and I know that all of us are capable of going off sometimes. No harm, no foul.

And this post is most assuredly not intended to be antagonistic but is rather offered as an explanation of my own behavior and my interpretation of the events and the communications that have led us to this point.

So do enjoy your day and certainly chime in here with whatever you wish to say on the topic. There is no animus or resentment, of that you may rest assured.

Cheers, eh?

[JimC]

The above post is very much in the spirit of the Ratz tradition of courtesy and thoughful explication of a position.

As a new mod keeping an eye on this part of the forum, this is good news - less work for me!

[Fact-Man]

The above post is very much in the spirit of the Ratz tradition of courtesy and thoughful explication of a position.

As a new mod keeping an eye on this part of the forum, this is good news - less work for me!

Thank you for affirming that I achieved my goal!

That's good news and it is very much appreciated.

[Matthew Bailey]

I have attended some conferences in Palo Alto that lead me to believe that by the 2020s (2021-2030) we will have the technology to reverse most AGW, and to develop climate controls that can do things like dissipate hurricanes, or prevent hail storms. All of the proposals had some impressive math to back them up (much of which checked out), and the Foresight Nanotech Institute seems to back some of these methods.

They ranged from carbon capture and transfer technologies to active cooling and heating of the atmosphere (much like HAARP) and sea (not just surface).

As it stands, I think that we need to be doing something in case these technologies don't come on line, and in case we cannot do anything about climate change.

In the case of Global Warming deniers, they all seem to be of the opinion that we are entering another ice age. It seems that there is an intersection of preventative measures that will help in either case that we could be doing (although I have noticed that almost every one of the denialists are in the fields of geology or associated with petrochemicals. I wonder what that is about?).

The nice thing about the technologies I have mention at the beginning of my post is that these could be used to prevent either scenario: Cooling or Warming.

Matthew Bailey

[JimC]

I know many green groups don't like the idea, but carbon dioxide sequestration at source (ie directly from coal-fired plants) could be a useful stopgap. If the stations are close to old oil or gas deposits (with empty fields), then pumping the CO2 underground for long term storage could be an option. I know it is early days, but some coal fired stations will continue to run for the forseeablle future, so it may be one tool in the armoury...

And, in a thousand years, if our descendants were facing an ice age, just open 'em up, and let 'em rip!

[Mysturji]

I did get of to a bad start, and I offer my apologies to fact-man for that.
What set me off was the admonitions in the OP about "No denial here! No-no! We must all agree about points one through nine" that pissed me off, on top of the other stress of the last few days, and I read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF.

Interestingly, though the thread did invite the creation of another thread for purposes of discussing skepticism, which you in fact did create, and here we are in it.

Well, that was the mods TBH.

This very distinction was hammered out at RDF and we did end up there with three threads on GW and climate change, just as we now have three identical threads here. And the skeptic thread at RDF was a very robust affair and was indeed much, much longer than the other two, probably longer than the other two combined. I don't recall ever seeing any posts from you in that thread, assuming your user handle was the same there as it is here, which I understand may not be the case. But nevertheless, there was ample opportunity at RDF for members to voice skepticism and/or denial and plenty of memnbers did exactly that.
I think MacDoc figured out that the skeptics thread at RDF was 100 pages in length.

Hence I fail to see how you "read in that all of the other dogmatic, fundamentalist type behaviour that kept me out of these kind of threads at RDF." There was a skeptics thread at RDF, and as I've noted it was the most used and most robust of all three threads on the subject in that forum.

Yes, I'm Mysturji everywhere on the web. It's not surprising you don't remember me from those threads though. Early on, I got in a good smack-down on some guy who couldn't tell the difference between "influence" and "control", but soon after that I replied to someone else's post with a "yes, but..." and the wolves descended. It was like a flashback to my Mindfuck at Rapture Ready, so I thought "OK, fuck you too, arsewipes" and never went back. That was probably about 2 years ago.

When we dealt with the question at RDF and tried to figure out what a good logical breakdown of the discussion might be we came up with three threads, 1) reporting on the science, 2) discussions the science and its policy implications, and 3) discussing skepticism and denialism.

A lot of work by a lot of people went into making that decision and arriving at what, in the end, turned out to be a very workable three-thread structure. It definitely satisfied all the needs that had been expressed regarding the best way to structure things.

When we came here, I think MacDoc decided that the best place to start was to duplicate RDF's three thread structure, which had worked so well. He asked me to create the "policy implications" thread, which I did, while he created the science reporing thread and we left the idea of a third or skeptics thread open to see if there was a demand for it.

That's why in the OP of the "policy implications" thread I started this statement was included:

I would prefer that doubts or denials of that body of science not be debated here. Sceptical or denialist debate may be made the topic of another thread anyone may create should they wish.

which was an open invitation for yourself or anyone to create a skeptics thread, which you then proceeded to do, but only after dropping a bomb on my OP.

I felt more at home here, and thought I would be more likely to get a word in, because over there (it seemed to me the last time I tried to post in a CC thread) that anyone who doesn't completely toe the AGW Party line (even just a "yes, but...") is immediately shouted down by a pack of rabid wolves and dissed as completely ignorant of all science in all it's forms. The peanut gallery then chips in with a flurry of ad-homs, they pat each other on the back, then the wannabe Cali's step in with links to 23,971 peer-reviewed papers and say "See: Proof! Go away and don't come back until you're read it!". Because unlike the original version, they can't "Blind them with science" or construct a valid argument, so they BURY the poor fucker in cut&paste science for DARING to say "Yes, but...".

Well, you're exaggerating here.

Yes, I do that. It's part of my posting style. I figure even when you're making a serious point, you can still have fun and/or raise a chuckle. That's why my exaggerations are so ludicrously over-the-top that they couldn't possibly be mistaken for a serious comment.
Well, not usually.

The skeptics thread at RDF was home to several denialists and skeptics who persevered there literally for years, Zappi, Jij, Collegavanerik, JohnBrandt, Egrey, AM, and Luis Diaz, among others. The so-called "pack of rabid wolves" to which you allude didn't slow these folk down for a minute. Had you joined in you'd have had plenty of allies.

I won't say it wasn't rancorous at times or that members didn't give the moderator Gallstones a run for her moderating money, it certainly did become turbulent and angry and harsh from time to time, sometimes even for extended periods, but Gallstones managed to keep it generally in line, handing out more than a few month-long banishments to members on both sides of the issue.

Part of the problem in that thread was the repetition of already debunked arguments, Zappi was particualrly guilty of this transgression, and Jij wasn't far behind him. Can you understand how such repetitions can become frustrating to those on the other side of the issue? How many different times does an argument or a case have to be shot down? It seems once ought to be enough.

Indeed I can. I have suffered that very frustration with creationists and other fundy-types at RDF. Can you understand my frustration at being smacked down for postulating those very same canards when in fact, I had said something completely different? See what I mean about "only one kind of kaffir"?

And perhaps especially when the skeptic/denialist community has been unable to proffer any peer-reviewed science that explains the warming that's been observed. AGW science does explain it, the denialosphere has failed to do so. There are no countervailing theories to AGW and what few that have been offered, e.g., natural variability, the sun's intensity, cosmic rays, water vapour, have all been shot down.

Have I questioned the science?
Please re-read my posts and tell me if you think I have. If something I said needs clarification, I will clarify it.
My one and only issue with the science is that SOME people (not all) seem a little too cocksure about climatology's predictive powers. (And even that issue is much less about the actual science than it is about the arrogance of some of the people involved.)
And that's the only "denialist" stance I have ever taken, but that's for another day.

It has become something of a cliche over at RDF, because fundies keep saying it, but in some cases it is true: To some people, science (especially the science of climate change) is a religion. They appear to have complete and utter faith in something they don't understand, and they act like science has all the answers.

Do you have faith that the jetliner you're about to climb aboard to fly off to Rio will actually get you there safe and sound? I can't think of anyone who would board such a jetliner without that kind of faith, yet few of them have any idea of the aeronautical science that underpins a jetliner's ability to do what it does.

I don't think that's any kind of religious faith at all, it's merely a reflection of the airplane's track record and the track record of commercial aviation.

This is a poor analogy if it's supposed to illustrate my position.
I'm not a scientist, but I am a science enthusiast, and physics is one of my favourites, so yes: I do have a pretty good understanding of the basic principles of aerodynamics, and even internal combustion engines, though I'm not a mechanic either.
I agree that relatively few people who fly have as much understanding, but it's still not blind faith. Everyone has seen planes flying. Lots of them. All the time.
No-one has seen the future.

We aren't and can't or won't all be scientists; at some point we all place faith in science and we do so largely on its track record. Medical patients do this routinely, subjecting themselves to medical procedures about which they have no clue of the science upon which they are based.

Again: everyone has seen a doctor. Many of them have even had surgery done on them, or at least know someone who has. This is a different kind of "faith". It is based on evidence.

The idea that climate science was a new "religion" was put out there by the denialosphere ... as a means of denigrating the science and those who adhered to it. I always thought i was kind of funny that this charge would be levied on an atheist site, of all places. It was pure demonization.

I think there is yet another misunderstanding of my position here. I'm not that kind of kaffir. The "faith" I was talking about belongs to the sheeple who believe every word they hear - even when they don't understand - because it came from a "scientist". Gullible and/or impressionable people take the Argument from Authority to its logical extreme, and then they join the peanut gallery.
At least, that's how it seems sometimes.

People like that piss me off for being as ignorant as they accuse me of being, just for saying "yes, but..."
In the face of behaviour like that, I have rolled my eyes and bitten my tongue. I thought it would have been different here. My mistake.

I don't think it's a "mistake" at all and the reason I don't is because I'm convinced that if you post cogent arguments agaist AGW in this thread they will be taken seriously and seriously considered. And the truth is there's a Nobel awaiting anyone who does develop a scientific explanation for the warming we've observed that's not AGW.

It sure seemed like a mistake when someone who had joined this forum less than 24 hours before waded in and bitchslapped a long-standing member, telling them what they could or could not post and where, throwing fallacies and misrepresentations into the mix. Who died and made him mod?
I've never liked bullies, and I don't take that shit anymore.
But as I've been trying to say... I'm not disputing the science. I'm not that kind of kaffir.

It does however take some familiarity with the issue to do this, one has to know which arguments have already been debunked for example, one has to know AGW science pretty well and have some undertanding of where its weak spots may be. That's a fairly tall order but I'm the last guy who will claim it isn't possible.

And it's rather frustrating when people debunk those canards in response to one of your posts when you never said any such thing.

I think the best approach is when you run across an argument you think has merit in debunking AGW to first throw it out there as a question, rather than as an assertion. "I ran across this paper and it appears to me it debunks AGW, has it been discussed? Is it holding water? Can it be trusted? Is my source reliable? Then see what you get by way of response and carry on from there. That is, of course, a non-confrontional approach and is, rather, a collegial one.

If things remain civil here (as I hope they do) I will probably be doing that.

Note that I did not accept the apology you proferred at the beginning, not because I don't think it's worth accepting but because I don't think it was necessary in the first place. I can and do appreciate the idea of it and the impetus that drove you to making it, but I just don't think you owed anyone an apolgy for anything.

I chalk these things up to the "heat of the battle," so to speak, and I know that all of us are capable of going off sometimes. No harm, no foul.

I was going to forgive you for mis-spelling my name, but not any more.

And this post is most assuredly not intended to be antagonistic but is rather offered as an explanation of my own behavior and my interpretation of the events and the communications that have led us to this point.

So do enjoy your day and certainly chime in here with whatever you wish to say on the topic. There is no animus or resentment, of that you may rest assured.

Cheers, eh?

[Reverend Blair]

First of all, good morning. Second of all, let's not forget the song...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah6BU-en ... re=related

No death banjo this morning though. Maybe later.

Also, I have a dog resting his head on my belly and a cat sleeping on my shoulder/head, so if there's typos, keep that in mind.


Anyway, I just wanted to respond to this:

I'm not a scientist, but I am a science enthusiast, and physics is one of my favourites, so yes: I do have a pretty good understanding of the basic principles of aerodynamics, and even internal combustion engines, though I'm not a mechanic either.
I agree that relatively few people who fly have as much understanding, but it's still not blind faith. Everyone has seen planes flying. Lots of them. All the time.
No-one has seen the future.

Cool, another non-scientist. It's good to be in the same boat.

In the case of global warming, I would argue that a lot of people have seen the future. If you look at what's happening in the far, and not so far, North, the future is already there and it's kicking the crap out of things. Also, other than happening sooner and more quickly than was generally thought would happen, it shows the predictions to be fairly accurate.

Even as far south as I am, farmers and the various scientists who work in agriculture, as well as biologists, climatologists etc. have noted a shift. Spring comes earlier, fall and winter come later. The rains are less predictable. The winters are generally warmer. It's not huge here yet, but it is notable and it's already causing issues. Agriculture is the biggest so far, but we're seeing a lot of animals wandering in where they weren't seen before...moose and black bear, even wolves. We're also having a lot more trouble with coyotes, but that might just be stupid city people moving into the country and not accepting that sometimes the cat gets eaten.

In the near north, they get a lot of supplies via ice road in the winter. Those roads are opening later and closing earlier. There have been shortages of affordable staples in some northern communities as a result, as the only option is flying supplies in, and that pushes the price way up.

As you head further north, those issues get bigger. In Churchill, on the edge of Hudson's Bay, polar bears are trapped on the shore longer, birth rates are down as are the weights of the cubs. The rail line that services Churchill...is the only way in if you can't afford to fly...is increasingly problematic due to permafrost melting and muskeg expanding.

The permafrost is disappearing everywhere up there. Moving houses is a growth industry and the permafrost melts and foundations collapse. Whole lakes are disappearing as the permafrost that holds the water in melts away.

Inuit hunters are having trouble reading the ice. Strandings on ice flows and deaths from falling through the ice are up. In some places they are returning to dog-sleds instead of snowmobiles because the dogs will go through before the hunter.

There's a lot of other things...the treeline is moving north, southern animals are moving up there too. Indigenous animals are having their migration, breeding, and birthing patterns disrupted as things change. These things have all been documented.

We are seeing the future, or are at least getting a glimpse of it, and it's not pretty.

[Fact-Man]

Anyway, I just wanted to respond to this:

I'm not a scientist, but I am a science enthusiast, and physics is one of my favourites, so yes: I do have a pretty good understanding of the basic principles of aerodynamics, and even internal combustion engines, though I'm not a mechanic either.
I agree that relatively few people who fly have as much understanding, but it's still not blind faith. Everyone has seen planes flying. Lots of them. All the time.
No-one has seen the future.

Cool, another non-scientist. It's good to be in the same boat.

In the case of global warming, I would argue that a lot of people have seen the future. If you look at what's happening in the far, and not so far, North, the future is already there and it's kicking the crap out of things. Also, other than happening sooner and more quickly than was generally thought would happen, it shows the predictions to be fairly accurate.

Even as far south as I am, farmers and the various scientists who work in agriculture, as well as biologists, climatologists etc. have noted a shift. Spring comes earlier, fall and winter come later. The rains are less predictable. The winters are generally warmer. It's not huge here yet, but it is notable and it's already causing issues. Agriculture is the biggest so far, but we're seeing a lot of animals wandering in where they weren't seen before...moose and black bear, even wolves. We're also having a lot more trouble with coyotes, but that might just be stupid city people moving into the country and not accepting that sometimes the cat gets eaten.

In the near north, they get a lot of supplies via ice road in the winter. Those roads are opening later and closing earlier. There have been shortages of affordable staples in some northern communities as a result, as the only option is flying supplies in, and that pushes the price way up.

As you head further north, those issues get bigger. In Churchill, on the edge of Hudson's Bay, polar bears are trapped on the shore longer, birth rates are down as are the weights of the cubs. The rail line that services Churchill...is the only way in if you can't afford to fly...is increasingly problematic due to permafrost melting and muskeg expanding.

The permafrost is disappearing everywhere up there. Moving houses is a growth industry and the permafrost melts and foundations collapse. Whole lakes are disappearing as the permafrost that holds the water in melts away.

Inuit hunters are having trouble reading the ice. Strandings on ice flows and deaths from falling through the ice are up. In some places they are returning to dog-sleds instead of snowmobiles because the dogs will go through before the hunter.

There's a lot of other things...the treeline is moving north, southern animals are moving up there too. Indigenous animals are having their migration, breeding, and birthing patterns disrupted as things change. These things have all been documented.

We are seeing the future, or are at least getting a glimpse of it, and it's not pretty.

The North is getting hit as you describe, but it's not getting a lot of media attention.

Probably the single biggest impact we're seeing here in British Columbia is the enormous increase in the over-winter survival rate of the larvae of the Pine Bark Beetle, which colder winters in the past used to largely kill off, which kept their overall population in check.

But warmer winters have reversed that kill rate and now our Northern forests are infested with massive numbers of this beetle and it is killing millions upon millions of trees, creating vast bands of red through the forests as trees die (they first turn red in their death throes).

This infestation is now spreading into Northern Alberta forests.

Ministries of Environment in BC and in Alberta are struggling to find ways to combat this, as it has large impacts on the forest industries in these Provinces. They haven't come up with anything that's really effective yet and they seem not to exhibit a lot of faith in doing so. One biologist I chatted with said, "We're at a loss."

I was witness to some of the more egregious changes that are going on North of 60 when I was fortunate enough to have been invited to go along on a research trip to Ellesmere Island last year, spending ten days there. As you note, it's not a pretty sight.

The Arctic is in many ways the future, as you note.

[Reverend Blair]

The North is getting hit as you describe, but it's not getting a lot of media attention.

Probably the single biggest impact we're seeing here in British Columbia is the enormous increase in the over-winter survival rate of the larvae of the Pine Bark Beetle, which colder winters in the past used to largely kill off, which kept their overall population in check.

But warmer winters have reversed that kill rate and now our Northern forests are infested with massive numbers of this beetle and it is killing millions upon millions of trees, creating vast bands of red through the forests as trees die (they first turn red in their death throes).

This infestation is now spreading into Northern Alberta forests.

Have you noticed that the lack of media attention to these issues has coincided to a large extent with the Harper government's time in power? Not only have they cut grant money so that there is less research going on, but they've placed a gag order on government scientists, so they can't talk to the media unless they are simply parroting official government policy.

[Tarby]

IMHO, this involves behavior that's but a step away from the outright drawing guns and shooting. Talk about a war on science, this is it!

No better than McCarthyism. I saw one post elsewhere where a prominent "sceptic" gave a veiled threat to an AGW blogger that her career was threatened.

Evening all, btw Rev, I've missed the tunes.