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<p><font size="+2"><i><b>December 22, 2021</b></i></font></p>
<i>[ These are the top NYTimes climate stories of the past year -
with data from years ago ] </i><br>
<b>The Year in Climate News</b><br>
A lot happened this year. Jog your memory with stories compiled by
The New York Times climate desk.<br>
- -<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/22/climate/climate-change-year-in-review-2021.html">https://www.nytimes..com/2021/12/22/climate/climate-change-year-in-review-2021.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ clips from Dr Michael E. Mann ] </i><br>
<b>Global destruction isn’t funny, but when it comes to the climate
crisis, it might have to be</b><br>
Science isn’t finished until it’s successfully communicated. ‘Don’t
Look Up’ succeeds not because it’s funny and entertaining, but
because it’s serious sociopolitical commentary posing as comedy.<br>
By Michael E. Mann - Dec 21, 2021<br>
As a scientist devoted to communicating the dangerous impacts of
climate change, I don’t want Adam McKay’s new film, “Don’t Look Up,”
to one day be remembered as prescient and accurate...<br>
- -<br>
So how can climate advocates break through this calcified
information environment? We have to look for another way in. Humor
and satire can help. Though a serious scientist at heart, I’m a
convert to this way of thinking. It’s why I’ve done interviews with
Bill Maher and Al Franken. And it’s why I’ve partnered with
editorial cartoonist Tom Toles to communicate the climate crisis.
It’s the same reason Charlie Chaplin deployed humor as a clarion
call against fascism and antisemitism, and as a wake-up call for
America to eschew neutrality and rescue Europe from Hitler’s
Germany: Humor and satire are powerful vehicles for change. And
scientific research supports this.<br>
<br>
Recent peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated that humor is a
powerful tool for engaging the public on climate change. These
studies followed a March 2017 report of the American Psychological
Association that defined ecoanxiety as “chronic fear of
environmental doom.” The report described an increase in depression
and anxiety caused by peoples’ “inability to feel like they are
making a difference in stopping climate change” but that
“climate-change humor stops people from worrying about their
politics and lets them take in the information. . . . Scientists
don’t always understand their audience. Getting someone to laugh is
half of the work of getting them to understand.”<br>
<br>
Which brings me back to “Don’t Look Up.” McKay’s film succeeds not
because it’s funny and entertaining; it’s serious sociopolitical
commentary posing as comedy. It’s a cautionary tale about the
climate crisis stitched together by McKay’s signature biting humor.
That’s the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.<br>
<br>
As we look toward the next decade — a critical decade from the
standpoint of averting truly catastrophic climate change — we need
more unconventional endeavors like “Don’t Look Up” to communicate
the perils of climate inaction. Scientific research, on its own,
will travel only so far (until scientists distill a 900-page report
into a 90-second TikTok). Science isn’t finished until it’s
successfully communicated.<br>
<p>As Beth Osnes, associate professor of theater and environmental
studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said, “Climate
change isn’t a laughing matter, but sometimes you have to laugh at
your pain to get to a solution.” So let’s stop to have a laugh or
two. And then get on with the work at hand. <br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bostonglobe..com/2021/12/21/opinion/global-destruction-isnt-funny-when-it-comes-climate-crisis-it-might-have-be/">https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/21/opinion/global-destruction-isnt-funny-when-it-comes-climate-crisis-it-might-have-be/</a></p>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ Michael E. Mann's Hockey Stick Graph is now updated ] </i><br>
<b>What the Hockey Stick missed about climate change</b><br>
Dec 10, 2021<br>
Simon Clark<br>
The infamous hockey stick figure was published in 1999. A new paper
just blew it out of the water with an INCREDIBLE reconstruction...<br>
You may have already heard of the 1999 hockey stick created by
Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes, and Raymond Bradley. It's a frequent
skeptic talking point, and was involved in a whole scandal called
climategate that rocked the scientific world. Eventually however it
was validated by dozens of independent studies, and its conclusions
accepted - the world is currently undergoing warming the likes of
which humans have never seen before. Last month however, the hockey
stick got an amazing upgrade. A new paper by Osman et al
reconstructed the past 24,000 years of climate using new techniques,
and gave us new insights into just how unprecedented anthropogenic
global warming really is.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://youtu.be/CqtZdnpfgIc">https://youtu.be/CqtZdnpfgIc</a>
<p>- -</p>
<i>[ More info ]</i><br>
<b>Scientists extend and straighten iconic climate “hockey stick”</b><br>
24,000 years of climate history, with our current warming being
unique in the record.<br>
- -<br>
So what changed?<br>
Osman and colleagues concluded that most of the conundrum’s
resolution is due to the sophisticated handling of geographic
unevenness in their data compared to prior work. “Older
reconstructions are just binned latitudinal averages,” said Tierney.
“[That] method has a downside in that it doesn’t account for
temperature changes in regions that are unsampled.”<br>
<br>
Tierney’s team also found the conundrum could not be explained by
seasonal growth of the plankton and algae used to reconstruct
temperatures. “Even after accounting for seasonal bias, we still
could not reconcile the [results] with reconstructions based on
proxies alone,” said Tierney. “This led us to conclude that spatial
representation was the most important factor.”<br>
<br>
Dr. Shaun Marcott of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led a
proxy reconstruction of Holocene climate in 2013, told Ars that the
new work is a significant step forward. "The full field surface
temperature reanalysis… is well beyond prior papers and has taken
this team of scientists close to a decade to build," he said,
adding, "It is a triumph, and what this group has been doing is
spectacular!"<br>
<br>
For Mann, who had to go all the way to the US Supreme Court to
defend his work and reputation, this work represents yet another
vindication. “It’s become clear that the hockey stick ‘handle’ is
much longer, and the ‘blade’ is sharper as we’ve warmed
substantially since 1998 when we first published the ‘Hockey
Stick,’” he told Ars.<br>
<br>
Nature, 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03984-4<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/scientists-extend-and-straighten-iconic-climate-hockey-stick/">https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/scientists-extend-and-straighten-iconic-climate-hockey-stick/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[ good idea, tell others, get one, keep the batteries fresh ....
]</i><br>
<b>Watching for Extreme Weather? Try a Radio</b><br>
There are many ways to stay informed. A weather radio is one of the
most reliable<br>
When you live in Tornado Alley, you get used to the school drills,
the periodic testing of the sirens, and storms that knock over trees
and flood roadways. A face you know above all others is the
broadcast meteorologist, who tells you routinely about tornado
watches, and occasionally tornado warnings. When tornadoes
materialize, this feature of our everyday existence becomes
horribly, surprisingly real.<br>
<br>
As I followed the news recently in Kentucky and Tennessee, I was
dumbstruck. Severe storms are becoming more frequent, and more
destructive. And even though, as a journalist, and a Texan, I’ve
witnessed tornado destruction many times in my life, it’s still hard
to wrap your head around the images of rubble, the overturned cars,
and trees, and buildings torn to shreds next to ones barely touched.
It’s been hard to fathom the number of lives lost in one weekend, in
part because these storms came in the night, in December, when
tornadoes are rare, and many people were asleep...<br>
<i>[get a radio]</i><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.scientificamerican..com/article/watching-for-extreme-weather-try-a-radio/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/watching-for-extreme-weather-try-a-radio/</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<i>[The news archive - looking back to climate scientist Charles
David Keeling.] </i><font size="+1"><b><br>
</b></font><font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global
warming December 22, 2010</b></font><br>
December 22, 2010: The New York Times reports on the legacy of the
late climate scientist Charles David Keeling.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0</a><br>
<br>
December 22, 2011: In Commentary magazine, former George W. Bush
administration official Peter Wehner writes:<br>
<blockquote>"Our task is to win the debate on the merits, to employ,
as best we can, honest and credible arguments in order to
ascertain the reality of things. And if the science shows that
Earth is warming and that humans have played a role in that, then
we need to accept it, even if that puts us on the same side with
some individuals we don’t find particularly appealing. What
matters is where the truth lies, not the company we find ourselves
in...<br>
<br>
"In 2006, the Climate Science Program, a federal program under the
direction of the Bush White House and sponsored by agencies
including NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, found 'clear evidence of human influences on the
climate system.' There are several others I could cite.<br>
<br>
"The point is that these reports are sober, measured and serious.
They make a scientific, not a polemical, case for AGW. It’s
possible they are wrong. But their case has been made in a
persuasive and empirical manner...it matters that all the world’s
major science academies have said that AGW is occurring, and they
have supplied the empirical case for their findings. The challenge
for conservatives is to engage the most serious and honest
arguments of those who believe in AGW, not simply lock in on the
global alarmists. And the temptation conservatives need to resist
is to portray the entire climate change movement as consisting of
individuals who are more interested in ideology than science...for
some on the right...to insist that AGW is a hoax, the product
(more or less) of a massive conspiracy, is, I believe, damaging to
conservatism. That is something I do care about. And more than
that, it is, from what I can tell, a position at odds with where
the evidence leads. Contemporary liberalism can do as it will. But
for conservatism, facts–those stubborn facts–need to be our
guiding star."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/22/conservatives-climate-change-facts/">http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/22/conservatives-climate-change-facts/</a><br>
<br>
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<p>/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------/</p>
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