A video came cycling around to me that provided gleeful evidence that the Climate Alarmists use sneaky methods to distort the information and make everyone shake in their boots because the world will end in less than 12 years. This guy, Tony Heller (aka Steven Goddard), even went so far as to create a tool to find the best point in any trend graph for best (mis)representing data.
As with many such reports, I would always like to find myself wrong, and to discover that I've become a Climate Alarmist for nothing. All that lost sleep, spending time developing business ideas and models that are both sustainable, politically viable, and profitable.
Sadly, Heller is simply a fraud. He used his own tool to make fun of activists, and to distract people from facts. Here is a great video by Mallan Baker that takes on a couple of Heller's debunk graphs to debunks the junk.
Why is Heller talking Continental US and pointing at specific US cities when we are talking GLOBAL warming. The US had some wicked hot years during the Dust Bowl, for example.
Wikipedia can be the best overview source for highly active and rapidly updated pages like these: Global Warming, Climate Change, Sustainability in general, and Climate Change Denial.
By now you know that everyone knows that there's global warming. Thermometers tend not to lie.
But I keep finding people who have been convinced that warming is not very much, or that it is a natural cycle to earth, or that humans are only responsible for a fraction of the warming we are experiencing.
Even the oil companies now acknowledge that there's global warming, but their business model is not conducive to any of the logical approaches to deal with the issue aggressively. In fact, according to internal documents, the oil companies have know for half a century that global warming was a byproduct of their product and hidden this from the public in order to protect their business-as-usual profits.
With current technology, we can easily measure the energy that comes from the sun, and the amount that is reflected back into space. All evidence shows global warming is happening, and at an accelerating pace. You can use lots of good data sources related to land, ocean, air, ice coverage, etc. Statistically, solar flares, volcanoes, El Nino and other major factors can be isolated; warming can easily be primarily attributed to human factors.
We don't have time to debunk the deniers, people and lobbyists who are paid by deep fossil interests. We need to go about becoming more sustainable, like as if our collective lives depend on it. Business-as-usual (oil, gas, coal) is unsustainable. Being unsustainable is something that must change, sooner or later. Being unsustainable has a way of becoming more and more expensive, and coming to an ungraceful end.
Fortunately, we will actually save money (i.e., more profits) from doing smart and sustainable things. Solar and Wind are now far cheaper than fossil fuels in most locations (even when combined with battery). Renewable energy is especially cheaper when considering all the externality costs of fossil fuels (pollution, health, national security).
Energy efficiency offers a perpetuity of savings. The greenest gallon of gas is the one never pumped, refined, shipped and burned. The greenest electricity is the negawatt. We also like Teleworking, the greenest commute is zero-distance which consumes no time.
Let's all start with those things that can be done immediately (within weeks or a few months) and those that offer a perpetuity of savings. We need to start putting the magic of compounding to our advantage, not toward more non-sustainable practices.
< * Notes & References * >
Wikipedia is a great source on Climate Change. Start with the Global Warming Book.
An excellent source for fact/fiction/myth is: SkepticalScience.com (I've never seen anything there that was not supported with sources and provable with current data.)
The log entry for Baker video:
A few days ago, noted Climate Change commentator Tony Heller released a
new video with some killer facts that completely exposes the conspiracy
over climate change.
Or does it?
Let’s discuss.
The Mallen Baker Show is aimed at all people who see themselves as
change makers, with commentary on issues and change movements with a
particular focus on climate change and environment, social issues, free
speech and corporate social responsibility.
References in this video:
Tony Heller’s original video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8455K...
The National Climate Assessment Report
https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/down...
Extreme heat and cold graphs
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicator...
Wildfires analysis
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpres...
Interview with Dr Ottmar Endenhofer, IPCC (in German)
https://www.nzz.ch/klimapolitik_verte...
Integrated sea ice graph
https://web.archive.org/web/201905241...
Piecing together the arctic sea ice history
https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-pos...
