More gives us less

I used to believe that increased coverage of global warming in the main stream media would help turn the tide of public opinion. I smiled when I heard Brian Williams introduce a segment of the Nightly News with the phrase "Clean coal is an oxymoron."

I am no longer so optimistic. While the local Fox affiliate, KTVU (Oakland, CA) runs intelligent stories on global warming, they are not making an impression on the public. In fact, the number of people who think that global warming is linked to the actions of man is dropping, day by day with most believing that the warming we see is just part of the natural cycle of climate. These non-professional deniers seem to look at every down turn in the weather, every day that is not a record high temperature, as being further proof of their position.

When the scientific consensus about global warming is almost unanimous, when the major debates are about who to do to mitigate the problem, the only explanation for many is that the scientists are only saying what they say because that is the way to get grant money. In other words, that science has become so politicized that facts have become a matter for political rather than scientific discussion.

I am not sure how we turn this around because climate activism is itself a sort of proof of the notion that it is a political discussion rather than a scientific one. The Green Party should be foremost in offering solutions to the most serious problem we face as society, but we too, have not found the right way to do it. I hope some of you have a good suggestion.

Climate Insurance

They always tell you to follow the money. A good example is the money flow away from AIG and to some of their highly valued employees.

Perhaps the way we will get more public attention on the issues surrounding the climate disruption that we have brought on this planet will come from the outflow of money from insurance companies for losses stemming from extreme weather events and sea level rise.

According to the Wall Street Journal, state insurance regulators will require insurance companies to disclose how climate change is affecting their business.

The officials acted after concluding that climate change threatens insurers in two ways. It increases the risk of extreme weather events such as floods and wildfires, which would boost claims. And it is prompting governments to cap industrial carbon emissions that contribute to global warming -- a move threatens the profits of companies such as coal-fired utilities in which insurers commonly invest.

Click Read more! for the rest... it gets interesting.


If the big guys are worried about what is going to happen with coal fired power plants, what should the rest of us think about. Maybe we need to be on the lookout for public / private partnerships and quasi governmental organizations that will need to be bailed out because they have already sunk funds is a project that can only cost more and never deliver what it promises. Case in point: Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. I posted the following in a comment at Climate Progress where I first read of this.

There is a major project being planned for Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. This is property that the City of San Francisco has acquired when the US Navy decommissioned their facilities.
The January 14, 2009 meeting of the TREASURE ISLAND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY had this on their agenda.

Their approach leaves much to be desired, including the 36″ sea level rise projection.

The preferred design approach is to achieve finish floor elevations with a free board of six inches in a worse-case scenario (100 year storm event plus 36” inches sea level rise). Perimeter open space areas will having limited, short term ponding at high tide. The geotechnical design approach includes a range of techniques for densifying soil and subgrade materials to mitigate issues associated with liquefaction and settlement.

It will be very expensive and not do the job if all they plan for is a 36 in rise. I wonder how hard it will be for any potential tenant to get insurance. I wonder if those who are already occupying Treasure Island will have recourse against the City for failure to consider the effects of global warming before they started this project. I wonder if the project’s chief cheerleader, Gavin Newsome, gets a pass because he claims to be “green”.

It might be time for San Francisco's Green Supervisor to call for a review of the entire project.

The one San Francisco Supervisor who is on the Treasure Island Development Authority, Chris Daly, has always had a political game going on. He wants to make this the affordable housing solution for San Francisco. This sounds like a typical un-thoughtful project. Sell all the poor people a sinking solution.

Media coverage of Global Warming.

I have on multiple occasions found reason to fault the media for taking the easy road, asking questions of any supposed player and then expecting the public to make up their own mind. This may be OK when there are no verifiable facts regarding the issue being presented, but it is inexcusable where one presenter lies misrepresents the facts.

But the biggest sin practiced by the media is to define news as old or to ignore it completely. That is exactly what nearly every major US media outlet has managed to do regarding the recent Copenhagen Climate Science Congress. This was a major meeting of 2000 scientists involved in the study of climate and the disruption of normal climate patterns that we are currently experiencing. More details by clicking Read more!


The Congress had 5 key findings. Any one of these would have been news had the media not been saturated with a universal reaming of AIG and their bonus policies. Some in the media, and almost all of the Republican Congressional delegation will say that the climate scientists have been alarmist, scaring people, fabricating data to keep their projects funded, etc. In fact, most scientist are so scared of the alarmist title that they have been conservative in their forecasts for future climate scenarios and almost universally wrong. The #1 finding from Copenhagen was:

Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realized.

In the face of an increasing amount of data and an increasing imperative to take some action, the Republicans in the House of Representative are holding fast to their Do Nothing policies. In fact, it seems that they are so reactionary to have returned to the policies of one of their predecessors, the Know Nothing Party. That rather fits their immigration policies, but that is another story.

It is not unreasonable to claim that we are living in The Age of Stupid. As this UK Documentary looks back at our time from a not to distant future, it finds many instances of Know Nothing-ism and, sadly, too much of do-nothing form those who really understood but failed to act for one reason or another. That clearly defines the Republican (Know Nothing) and Democratic (Do Nothing Effective) stances.

At least, the UK Greens do not accept the status quo of the Age of Stupid. They turned out en masse to swell the numbers attending the public premier of this documentary.