Much Ado about Nothing

When people set their minds against something, they'll use any excuse to pull it down. Even the smallest molehill is blown out of proportion to become a mountain. In "Much Ado about Nothing" Shakespeare poked fun at protagonists who duelled over a verbal insult. They were ready to risk their lives for something Shakespeare saw as little more than nothing.

Similarly today, climate change deniers make a big fuss about little more than nothing. They exaggerate the importance of small differences to deny the broad consensus that exists among climate scientists.

This NASA graph shows global temperature anomalies 1880-2012 according to four main agencies (click to enlarge).

The agencies are NASA GISS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, and the Met Office Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom. All four institutions tally temperature data from stations around the world and make independent judgments about whether the year was warm or cool compared to other years.

Though there are minor variations from year to year, all four records show peaks and valleys in sync with each other. All show rapid warming in the past few decades, and all show the last decade as the warmest.

Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) say 2012 was the ninth warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. The ten warmest years in the 132-year record have all occurred since 1998. The last year that was cooler than average was 1976.

Contrarians and deniers who have their minds set against climate change pretend that the overall pattern isn't real, instead they make much ado about minor differences.

No wonder they are regarded as figures of fun who can't be taken seriously.

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News from the Transformation tab.  

Australian carbon emissions fell 8.6% in the first six months after the introduction of a carbon price in July 2012. 

The castle walls are breached

The defensive walls of the Denier citadel were breached today by Richard Muller's announcement that he is no longer sceptical about climate science.

Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

Richard Muller in New York Times

This particular 'road to Damascus' moment carries weight because Muller was outspoken in his criticism of aspects of the temperature record and he attracted significant funding from the Koch brothers (fossil fuel billionaires who fund climate change deniers). Arch-denier Anthony Watts took the extreme step of cancelling his vacation and imposing a three-day silence on his blog in readiness for the BIG announcement. Perhaps he was preparing his next line of defence, or gathering forces for a new defensive position. He has already reneged once on his commitment to accept Muller's findings. This latest announcement backs him into an even smaller corner.

To many who work in the field, Muller's latest announcement merely brings him up to date with where the science was in the mid 1990s.

At this rate, Muller should be caught up to the current state of climate science within a matter of a few years!

Michael Mann

This  event has me thinking of those wonderful defensive structures - the medieval castles of Europe and the Middle East.

Kidwelly Castle, Carmarthenshire, Dyfed, Wales, is a great example. Like most castles, it was constructed in a location with natural defences. Kidwelly was originally a timber castle built by the Normans about 1100 on a prominent ridge overlooking the river Gwendraeth.

Over the centuries it was rebuilt in stone and embelished with new defensive features.

For more than 400 years Kidwelly Castle provided a safe place for citizens to retreat when attacked and  housed garrison forces that could sally forth to attack mauraders and fight rivals. Its river, moat, steep berm leading to castle walls, towers, gates, parapets and other defensive features made it relevant and effective.

If an outer defence was breached, the defenders moved back to the next line of defence. If it came to the worst, defenders could withdraw to a single tower where they could hold out in the hope that relief forces would come to their aid.

Climate change deniers have the same approach to defending the Denier citadel. Here are the defensive lines around the citadel.

1. The outermost defence is an earth berm where the mass of defenders rattle their spears and chant, "It's not warming! It's not warming!"
2. The next line of defence is the moat where the defenders shout, "It's warming but it's not us! It's the sun! It's water vapour! It's a natural cycle! It's a squirrel!"
3. Then there are the outer walls of the castle, where diminished defenders run to and fro shouting, "It's warming, we did it, but it's not a big problem. Warm is nice, CO2 is good for plants, Greenland was lovely in the medieval warm period."
4. Then there is the inner wall of the castle, where the handful of remaining defenders stumble around muttering, "Yes, it's warming; yes human activity is the cause; yes, it will be horrible - but mitigation is too hard/expensive, so let's plan to adapt instead."

As each defense is breached, some of the defenders have their 'road to Damascus' moment and become advocates for action. Others fall back to the next line of defence. A few lost souls remain forever in No Mans Land crying in the wind, "It's not warming!" and "Look! It's a squirrel!"

Time passes and by 2050 the Denial citadel will be as irrelevant as the ruin of today's Kidwelly Castle. However, while Kidwelly Castle leaves a beautiful monument to the necessities of past culture, the relic of the Denier Citadel will be a monument to shame.

UPDATE: Anthony Watts's response to the Muller announcement was, "Look! It's a squirrel!" Maybe he thinks that's a useful tactic at any of the the defence lines - the berm, the moat, the outer and inner walls. Maybe he will still be shouting "It's a squirrell!" when the last defenders are holed up in the last tower. Or maybe he has joined the lost souls in No Mans Land, crying out for relevance.

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The Transformation tab reports examples of progress towards a low-carbon future. Here's the latest snippet.  

Bangladesh is installing nearly one thousand domestic solar systems every day. Over nearly two decades Grameen Shakti has set up a rural network to supply and maintain small solar systems that are affordable. By the end of 2012 it will have installed a total of one million solar systems and has expansion plans to install five million systems by 2015. Source: RenewEnergy.

The Sith Lords

The men from Koch — and the groups, politicians, and  disinformation they fund — are now the Sith Lords of climate and clean energy inaction in the country.

Joe Romm

It is no coincidence that countries with large mining sectors have the lowest levels of public support for the transition to a low-carbon economy. Renewables have been implemented most strongly by European countries with limited fossil fuel reserves and small mining industries. As a result, they have no home-grown propaganda industry to restrain investment in renewables.

Public opinion in the U.S., Canada and Australia has been strongly influenced by propaganda campaigns and misinformation as well as fear mongering and lobbying by the mining sector.

These miners protect their own interests at the expense of the wider community and the whole ecosphere. As well as direct political ads and lobbying, miners regularly fund climate change deniers and support their attack campaigns.

Paul Gilding describes the Koch brothers as "the corporate bad guys from central casting".

Little wonder that Joe Romm calls corporate deniers the Sith Lords. In Star Wars mythology, the Sith Lords represent the dark side – the forces of destruction, division, selfishness, and chaos.

Mother Jones reports on 'Dark Money' – the secretive funding for U.S. political campaigns. 

In the climate wars, the forces for good are ranged against the forces for evil.