James should pass the Woodie Guthrie Award on to Joe

First, congratulations to James Annan for accepting the Woodie for services to Earth Science Blogging, and best wishes to John Nielsen-Gammon who passed it on, but somehow, Eli thinks that folks are becoming a bit unclear on the concept.  You get a hint of that from the sign on Woodie Guthrie's guitar.  Guthrie was, in the current parlance, a premature anti-fascist.

Guthrie was an Okie, chased out of OK by the dust bowl, who wandered out to CA and then all around the US.  His environmentalism was love of the land and concern for his fellows.  He didn't think much of the idea that corporations could own the Earth.  The verse you never hear from This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land is

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
The sign was painted, it said 'private property';
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

and through all of his work, there is the theme of shared responsibility for the environment and all people.  Neither was very fashionable at the time.  Guthrie was a very dangerous man for those who desecrate the Earth for power and profit.  Pete Seeger talks about the disneyization of Guthrie in an interview which touches on many relevant themes

Guthrie wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Bound for Glory, the subject of a study by Matthew Sutton, while a graduate student at William and Mary.  The abstract of a presentation by Sutton summarizes what the Woodie should be about,

Guthrie's semi-fictional 1943 autobiography Bound for Glory has long been examined as a protest work, a vivid chronicle of the Dust Bowl, and a proto-Beat travelogue. What has been overlooked up until now is its power and relevance as an ecocritical text. What Bound for Glory advocates, ultimately, is neither Romantic pastoralism nor a green Utopia, but rather a reciprocal sustainability between working people and the land.

To illustrate the stark dialectic between sustainability and rapaciousness, citizen and subject, Guthrie employs the trope of the Ghost Town. Using his hometown of Okemah, Oklahoma as a synecdoche for the nation, Guthrie lambasts the civic irresponsibility of oil companies, who pollute the environment with their hit-or-miss wildcat drilling, deplete the region of its natural resources, and leave despair and economic disaster in their wake. As the book's protagonist "Woody" wanders a seemingly endless highway of lifeless Ghost Towns abandoned by oil speculators, Guthrie shows us fear in a townful of dust.

When his journeys take him West out of oil country into California, Guthrie discovers a similar system of exploitation toward migrant fruit pickers. Guthrie, whose guitar was emblazoned with the legend "This Machine Kills Fascists," draws clear parallels between the European fascist and the American corporation that strips the most vulnerable laborers of their identity and rights. As migrant workers are herded into makeshift camps amid squalid conditions, they are systematically robbed of the three necessities William Morris outlines in his 1884 essay "Art and Socialism": honorable and fitting work, decency of surroundings, and leisure. With little recourse but to sacrifice their health and overtax their land for a substandard wage, the migrant-citizens in Bound for Glory still cling to hopes of recovery, tied not simply to wealth and land ownership, but responsibility and land stewardship.

Depicting the Depression era as a crossroads, with the nation's ideals tested by hard times, Guthrie appropriates the rhapsodic cadences of Whitman and Steinbeck to express optimism and dignity in story and song. Neither the Ghost Town nor the migrant camp defines America so long as Guthrie and his chorus of characters commit themselves to working the land judiciously and productively. Bound for Glory deserves reconsideration and a fresh reading as we reach another crossroads, as issues such as environmental protection, immigration/migration, and the rebuilding of New Orleans demand that we find common ground at a place where citizenship and stewardship meet.

 Woodie Guthrie was a fighter, a clear thinking fighter, but a fighter none the less.  He used words to move mountains and he was always pushing past respectability.  He didn't care much for that.

Eli nominates Joe Romm for the next pass on (Eli is not very optimistic about his suggestion being followed).

If you want to learn more about Woodie Guthrie, take a look at the Official Woodie Guthrie Website, and finally a concert for the new winner

Improving existing coal plant efficiency is the political sweet spot

UPDATE;  Management strongly encourages readers to look at the bottom of the comments, a very interesting and informative discussion of electrical power distribution and generation has broken out.  Whoda thunk.

Nice post by Brad Plumer about unglamorous low-tech fixes for the climate:

Catherine Wolfram, an economist at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, says that we too often ignore simpler solutions, such as wringing more efficiency out of our existing fossil-fuel and nuclear plants. Many of those power plants, after all, are likely to stick around for decades to come.... 

Wolfram described what happened in the 1990s after some U.S. states began deregulating their electricity sectors. Utilities sold off their nuclear reactors to private operators. And, Wolfram found in a recent paper with Lucas Davis, electricity output at these newly privatized reactors increased 10 percent compared with those that stayed in the hands of tightly regulated utilities.

....Even today, Wolfram notes, many U.S. power plants still don’t have incentives to operate as efficiently as possible. There are many coal plants in the Southeast that are regulated under “cost-of-service” rules, in which power plants can pass their fuel costs onto consumers. That means there’s less reason to operate as efficiently as possible. And a carbon tax wouldn’t necessarily fix this — not if utilities could just pass costs onto consumers. 

Bruce Buckheit, a former EPA official, concurs. He notes that the efficiency of the U.S. coal fired fleet has remained flat since the 1970s. And a variety of research (pdf) suggests that small improvements in operations could boost the overall efficiency of the U.S. coal fleet by as much as 5 percent. (Wolfram, for instance, has found that a coal plant’s efficiency can vary as much as 3 percent depending on the skill of the guy sitting at the controls.) That may not sound like much, says Buchkeit, but spread across hundreds of coal plants, there are real carbon savings to be had here.

A mandate requiring the utilities to get off their lazy butts, improve coal plant efficiency to match the best-in-class levels, and pass the savings on to customers sounds like a political winner to me.  The Republicans will call it a slippery slope, but if you can't fight them on this then the game's over.  Seems like a nice initiative to move forward this fall.

It might be too expensive for the oldest plants to convert and shut them down instead, as if that's a sad story, but overall this should save people money.  I suppose the new investment might be used against an effort to shut the plants down in a few years, but for the vast majority of them, I think Brad is right that they're going to be around for more than a few years.  Anyway, it doesn't sound like it needs much of an investment, just some willingness to hire trained people.


UPDATE:  one possibility would be to exempt coal plants if the owners commit to shut them down or otherwise make them as efficient as natural gas within a certain period, say 5-10 years.  If the grandfathering that's found throughout the Clean Air Act came with time limits, we'd be much better off.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free

Some people like really bad analogies, others like to create them.  Now some, not Eli to be sure, think that Roger Pielke Jr. must be the monarch of bad analogies.  Eli has pointed out that the analogy police have an all puns bulletin out for him.  The Honest Broker has it all (wrong) because Roger doesn't have a clue about what a broker really does.  To repeat myself (which Eli does very well), Roger's naive injection (let's be nice) of the "honest broker" into climate science policy studies has pushed discussion into a fruitless direction. As with many such things, reality shows how hollow this is.  IEHO looking at what brokers do in the real world better illuminates the issue.

Brokers do not expand the scope of choices available to clients, they narrow them. Brokers make markets. Brokers make a living by matching buyers to sellers and taking a commission (You thought they do it for free? What carrot wagon you fall off of bunny?). Ethical brokers will go out on the market seeking product suited to clients and will seek clients suited to products available to them. Ethical brokers have mutual obligations to sellers and buyers, to qualify the buyers and vet the sellers, not to sell every piece of nuclear waste to every rube with a cell phone.

But Roger, of course thinks that the Honest Broker simply hands over the 2.5 zillion results you get from Googling anything on your Iphone.  Of course, this is excellent from his point of view, because it means that knowledge and judgement are not needed.

However, you knew there was going to be one of those, didn't you bunnies, Roger is feeling the competition.  His new one is even better.  Consider, he said he considered, what the best analogy would be for real economic innovation.  What would Roger do.  Well try:

Hooters.  

If you didn't know, it is a restaurant chain that sells bad food delivered by young ladies in, well, clothes that show their, you know what.  Now Roger thinks this is really clever.  Eli on the other hand remembers the 50s guys who read Playboy for the literary value, or more to the point, the young cool with it dudes who joined the Playboy club and jangled their Playboy key chains.  If you think about it Hooters is the playboy club without the admission fee and lower prices.  The kind of place your relationship with the hooter sex might survive if she caught you having a burger there.  Maybe.  Peek, don't touch.

Now some, not Eli to be sure, would go on for hours about this, much amusement could be had, but the real problem is that this is NOT the worst analogy out there.  That honor belongs to a real Heartland Institute Expert Rael Jean Isaac’s and her “Roosters of the Apocalypse”.

Isaac, who is basically the Girl from Likud has to earn a living.  She builds Roosters of the Apocalypse around the deadly delusions of the Xhosa.  In 1856, a young girl had a vision

She claimed that the spirits had told her that the Xhosa people should destroy their crops and kill their cattle, the source of their wealth as well as food. In return the spirits would sweep the British settlers into the sea. The Xhosa would be able to replenish the granaries, and fill the kraals with more beautiful and healthier cattle. . . .

Mhlakaza repeated the prophecy to Paramount Chief Sarhili. Sarhili ordered his followers to obey the prophecy, causing the cattle-killing movement to spread to an unstoppable point. The cattle-killing frenzy affected not only the Gcaleka, Sarhili's clan, but the whole of the Xhosa nation. Historians estimate that the Gcaleka killed between 300,000 and 400,000 head of cattle.

Nongqawuse predicted that the ancestors' promise would be fulfilled on February 18, 1857, when the sun would turn red. On that day the sun rose the same colour as every other day, and the prophecy was not realised. . . .

In the aftermath of the crisis, the population of British Kaffraria dropped from 105,000 to fewer than 27,000 due to the resulting famine.

Anyone with historical vision, recognizes this as millenialism run wild.  A vision, taken seriously resulting in disaster.  In more current terms, a cargo cult

A cargo cult is a religious practice that has appeared in many traditional pre-industrial tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced cultures. The cults focus on obtaining the material wealth (the "cargo") of the advanced culture through magic and religious rituals and practices. Cult members believe that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors.

the basis of which was well summed up by Arthur C. Clarke who pointed out that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  The irony here, is that Isaac has not a clue about science, therefore to her science is a magic, and belief in magic is optional, and may be fatal and climate scientists are delusional.  She really belongs on a Pacific Atoll.  Say for the next 50 to 100 years.

The bully pulpit gets its best-case test with same sex marriage

Many enviros have criticized Obama for not using the "bully pulpit" adequately to highlight the dangers of climate change.  Other activists make similar claims for their causes.  By contrast, most political analysts seem to think the bully pulpit doesn't actually work.

I think there's a measurement problem - short term changes could be noise or ephemeral reaction to the bully pulpit with no lasting implications.  Long term changes can't distinguish between bully pulpit causes and everything else in life.  My personal guess is that it plays a modest but not insignificant role in cultural attitudes, and plays a somewhat more important role in elite attitudes.

Obama's shift on same sex marriage provides the best hope that the bully pulpit can actually do something.  Public opinion has shifted dramatically on marriage equality in the last 20 years with some evidence of acceleration, so if there were ever a chance to accelerate it further, now seems like a great time.

Most polls I've seen following Obama's announcement have shown large shifts in African American public opinion (but not all polls) and little shift in non-black opinion.  Some analysts have complained that this shift just reflects people lining up with their side, as if that matters.  Anyway, it's short term. Long term, we all know that in a decade support for SSM will be the dominant position outside of the South but there would be no way to test whether the extent of the dominance was affected by Obama.

Let's look in the medium term, one or two years from Obama's announcement.  My guess, made before Obama evolved, was that his opinion could shift 5-7% of black opinion and 1-3% of non-black opinion.  I think I'll stick with that and look at polls in 2013.  The complicating factor is that support for SSM typically goes down in presidential election years as the Republican Party plays the anti-gay marriage card.  Might not happen this time, but who knows.

My prediction is that we'll see the biggest bump in African American support in 10 years, big enough to overcome any Republican push against marriage.

Moving past the medium term, I think the biggest effect of Obama's announcement is to line up the Democratic Party in all the same direction.  Democratic leaders in blue constituencies will find it very hard to resist supporting gay marriage.  Here in my area, the otherwise popular mayor of San Jose is finding that out, something that could really hurt his political future.  Democratic leaders in red constituencies and among African Americans now have much more room to support SSM.  This probably falls into the long-term category, though.

I'm not sure how this all plays into the debate over whether Obama should talk more about climate.  Overall I think that yes he can and yes he should, but his political actions are more important than the small effect he can have on public opinion in the medium term.


UPDATE:  found a prediction I made in 2005.

The actual timeline is that they'll benefit politically for another five years, it won't help or harm them much overall for ten years past that, and then for fifteen years it'll hurt them as they fight the fundamentalist dinosaurs in their party before they can finally get rid of the anti-gay marriage plank of the Republican Party platform.

I was too pessimistic overall.  Beginning in 2014, being anti-SSM will start hurting Republicans on the national level (this year it's neutral).  It won't take Republicans 30 years to drop opposition, more like 15-20 years.

CH Is Something Blue

The answer to yesterday's puzzler is CH, the free radical, whose fluorescent emission makes flames look blue.  The spectrum below is from a butane torch flame.  The CH dominates in the blue (~400 - 500 nm) with some contribution from the blue-green Swan bands of C₂.  More about that below.  Contrary to the otherwise pretty great video that won the flame prize, the blue color at the bottom of the flame is not atomic emission.

 As is the case with atmospheric chemistry, the observed reactions are dominated by reactions of free radicals as the Bunny showed in the Rabett Run post on methane oxidation in the atmosphere. Flames have much higher concentrations of free radicals, but also, because the temperature is higher, reactions of stable molecules which require a significant amount of energy to occur, are allowed.  This results in a much richer (and more complex) chemistry.   For anybunny who is worrying, the CN forms because of a small amount of reaction of nitrogen.  The hotter the flame, the more CN will form, but then it will quickly react away to form NO.

There is a lot to learn from flame chemistry and it has real consequences for optimizing all sorts of engines and industrial processes.  The US DOE has established several laboratories for this, among which the best, IEHO, is the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia, CA.  Eli is greatly in favor of efficiency.

Rabett Run will be returning to this theme several times this week to discuss other flaming issues.  (NONONO not that kind of flame, candle flames)

Judith Curry Doesn't Wants to Know

UPDATE:  Well, some, not Eli to be sure, perhaps Roger Pielke Jr., would point out that Judith already has done the Sgt. Schultz with respect to what happened at the 1995 meeting.  In the comments one of Eli's friendly anonymice points to Curry Quotes, where Judy prepeats:  (Schultz is the guy in red on the right)

 I do not have any knowledge of this situation beyond what is reported in the standard sources. This issue has been widely discussed and disputed. There is no particular reason to rehash it here, i brought it up as a key issue in the history of the IPCC and the debate surrounding it.

 Gavin Schmidt was moved to call her out

The facts remain that when you make broad and unspecific statements alleging ‘corruption’ or a ‘lack of integrity’ you simply feed the blog-chorus, while the people involved, or those who know the people you appear to referring to, are just left puzzled about what you are talking about. Because of course, no-one with integrity would make such serious allegations without some evidence.

However, when you have brought up specifics, they are generally warmed over talking points without any actual substance. Your latest comment about Ben Santer’s role in SAR is a case in point. There is a very readable account of what happened available on RC, and indeed in Steve Schneider’s last book (chapter 5). Neither account supports your, frankly, defamatory, claim, which instead appears to be based on the letter from the late Fred Seitz, someone who wasn’t there, and who invented a whole conspiracy out of the whole cloth on the op-ed pages of the WSJ. There is no question in mind who, between Fred Seitz, Ben Santer and Steve Schneider had a problem with integrity. Hint, his name doesn’t start with Ben or Steve.

Judith?

(Yes, the update has been artificially enhanced.  Wanna make something of it?)
-------------------------------------------------
Judith Curry is not one waste another libel against her colleagues without using it to passive aggressively kick some climate scientist,  and, sure enough, having spotted the n+1st reprise of Fred Seitz's lies about Ben Santer, she goes, oh gee, "This article paints a disturbing picture.   I would like to hear a defense/critique from IPCC principals."  Fortunately for Google challenged Judy, Eli knew about Ben Santer's  recent Close Encounter of the Absurd Kind, which dealt with this nonsense, but thanks to the Google he came across a contemporaneous report on the affair written by Stephen Schneider and Paul Edwards in 1997, which, the Rabett invites you to go read, but there is an important and inspiring section which the bunny will quote in full

At Madrid, Santer presented Chapter 8’s conclusions to the national delegates of 96 IPCC member nations. The conclusions were not presented alone, but followed a presentation to the plenary session of the scientific evidence contained in Chapter 8. Nevertheless, several countries objected to the Chapter 8 conclusions. Most of the objections came from OPEC or less-developed nations. One delegate, from Kenya, moved to have the chapter entirely dropped from the final report.

In response, the meeting’s chair — following procedures often used at IPCC Plenary meetings to resolve disputes — called for a drafting group to revise the chapter as well as and the detection and attribution section of the Summary for  Policymakers. Nations complaining about the Chapter 8 draft were invited, indeed expected, to meet with Lead Authors, first to discuss the scientists’ point of view and then to fashion new, mutually acceptable language.

This breakout group worked for the better part of a day. Delegates from over half a dozen countries — including the Kenyan who had publicly advocated dropping the chapter — met with about half a dozen Chapter 8 authors, including Santer, co-Lead Author Tom Wigley, and scientists Kevin Trenberth, Michael MacCracken, John Mitchell, and me (SHS). The Kenyan sat next to me.

Initially, he was confused by the discussion and somewhat hostile. We had many side conversations about what was being discussed: models, data, statistical tests and various climate forcing scenarios. Although he was not a front-rank climate researcher, this delegate was a trained scientist. He began to grasp the nature of the Lead Authors’ arguments, listening carefully to about half of the breakout meeting.

Ironically, the Saudi Arabian delegation sent no representative to this most controversial drafting group, even though Saudi Arabia had led the opposition in the plenary meeting. During the Chapter 8 debate, Saudi delegates often issued objections soon after receiving notes from the Global Climate Coalition representative. (Non-governmental organizations were also represented at Madrid. For example, S. Fred Singer — President of the Science & Environmental Policy Project and a self-proclaimed contrarian — raised a number of issues from the floor.)

Later in the plenary meeting, when Santer presented the drafting group’s revised text, the Saudi delegates once again objected. Santer forcefully challenged them. Why, he asked, had no Saudi attended the breakout group — if their objections had some basis in science? The head Saudi delegate haughtily announced that he didn’t have to account for his decisions about which drafting group to attend.

Besides, he said, his was “only a small delegation” of a few people. At this point the Kenyan delegate rose to speak. (I held my breath.) “I’m a member of a small delegation too,” he said. (He was the only Kenyan representative.) “But somehow I managed to attend this most important drafting session. As a result, I am convinced that Chapter 8 is now well written and I have no objections to its inclusion in the report.” (I paraphrase his words from memory.) The impact of his intervention was stunning, stopping with a few words what appeared to be a mounting movement of OPEC and LDC opposition to Chapter 8 before it could garner any further support.

Later on I privately congratulated the Kenyan for having the courage to object publicly, observe privately, and then re-evaluate his position before the entire plenary. He said he wasn’t sure his country would approve of his stance, but having witnessed the debate process for several hours, he had become convinced it was honest and open. That was all he needed to change his opinion from preconceived skepticism to support of the Lead Authors’ conclusions.

What this courageous delegate did was the essence of good science. He allowed his initial hypothesis to be subjected to new evidence, tested it, and found it wanting. He then listened to arguments for a different point of view, subjected them to the tests of evidence and debate, and reached a new conclusion.

 This scene has been described by several who were at the meeting, but Eli could not find the name of the Kenyan scientist who was his country's delegate.  Perhaps others might have more success.

In a less friendly way, the Rabett would like to point out that our friend, S. Fred Singer, was at the meeting, he witnessed all this and he has been unembellishing the truth ever since.  S. Fred, of course, is responsible for at least a ten year delay in taking action against environmental tobacco smoke, lead the charge against the Montreal protocols and is the Heartland Institute's main guy, having sucked more than 100K$ from them for various tasks like writing their NIPCC report.

Way to go Fred.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

UPDATE:  The answer is here

Update Notice:  The spam filter is going nuts, and the video is from Vimeo and is not loading sometimes.  The video can always be found at the Flame Challenge site below.   Since Google owns YouTube and Blogger, let your inner bunny paranoia run free.
 ------------------------------
The Flame Challenge arose from an 11 year old Alan Alda's wonderment

I’d like to try a playful experiment. Would you be willing to have a go at writing your own explanation of what a flame is—one that an 11-year-old would find intelligible, maybe even fun? The Center for Communicating Science is looking for new ways to light up people’s minds with science, and you might point the way. We’ll try out the entries on real 11-year-olds and see which work best. . . .

So here I am—I’m 11 years old and looking up at you with the wide eyes of curiosity. What is a flame? What’s going on in there? What will you tell me?

and the winner is Ben Ames, an American graduate student work on his doctorate at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.  The video is great.  Show it to your 11 year old.  They will love it and so will you.

The problem is that there is a huge mistake. Bunnies need to figure it out and report back. Eli will post the answer tomorrow. The Rabett offers you a hint in the post title.  There are lessons to be learned.

The Dangers of Genetic Manipulation

Nothing can go wrong.

Goodbye blue sky

The recent study showing that geoengineering via aerosols would make our planet's sky whitish, like what's seen in urban environments, is making the rounds.  It'll be interesting to see if we get some sky color denialism as a push back.  I also haven't seen whether urban skies would be even more altered as a result.

I expect this new study could have political repercussions.  The "don't worry about your SUV, we'll just partially blot out the sun and turn the sky a different color" crowd might find it a hard sell.  Especially when this change is from a human perspective, forever.  It will take centuries of pumping pollution in the atmosphere to balance the effect while the majority of extra CO2 is slowly eliminated.

Despite all this, I think we can't rule out the possibility that things will get so bad that we'll have to consider it.

UPDATE:  by comment request:

How To and Not To Debate an Issue

With the Euro's death spiral and the Greek tragedy, Paul Krugman has been a hot interview.  Whatever bunnies may think about those issues, the two videos from BBC Newsnight below clearly show the difference between is and ought in modern policy debates.

Is

Ought (w. Ken Rogoff @ 18:21 also @ 6:22 with Giorgos Papakonstantinou)

 

More please

Eli Is Aware of All Internet Traditions

Eli Rabett says:

May 31, 2012 at 10:42 am

As Eli pointed out a few days ago they will not have the last word because there are the issues of insurance and bonds. Anything built under the NC-20 standard that does not meet the one meter standard is going to have problems with the financial and insurance industries which already have this on its radar.

Reply

Erik Loomis says:

May 31, 2012 at 10:44 am

Did you just refer to yourself in the third person?

Reply

Hob says:

May 31, 2012 at 1:29 pm

You haven’t read Eli’s blog much, have you?

Ms. Rabett recommends WBGO, the best jazz station in the world, live streaming while reading Rabett Run

Allocate emissions to those who emit them (except electricity)

I got sidetracked as I often do, reading the Climate Progress thread that Eli referenced, into looking at a discussion about whether GHG emissions embodied in the production of imported products should go into the sinner's file of the importing nation.

The question is a truly exciting one of cost accounting.  In theory it doesn't really matter who you allocate the carbon cost to, as long as you allocate it to someone, you don't double count or undercount, and you keep the method consistent.  That's Coase Theorem for you - whoever's responsible for fixing the problem will be forced to put up the money to fix it.  So maybe you could choose to say the nation where the end user is gets the full freight.

Except it has some problems, especially when it concerns trade between sovereign nations.  For one thing, definition of end product could be hard.  A factory built to manufacture widgets for export - is the factory an end product or added to the emission of widgets?  An American reads a newspaper and then tosses it into a bin, where it gets shipped off to China for recycling.  Who's responsible for which or all emissions? It's easier to avoid these games and just count emissions where they become airborne.  More importantly, it could be a lot harder to track emissions in someone else's country and use legal force to ensure that country undertakes the conservation techniques/renewable energy/carbon sequestration that you're paying them to do.

The exporting country is getting paid for the product they export - if they internalize the externalized carbon cost of production that's an appropriate charge to bear.  Most countries prefer to be exporters rather than importers, so let the exporters pay for their pollution costs.

None of this denies the reality that China's emissions are (partly) why developed countries aren't even worse.  And Americans should fight coal exports to China just because it's a really bad idea, not because of carbon accounting.


UPDATE:  I forgot to add why electricity is different - it's such a close connection between buyer and seller that I think it's fair and practicable to allocate emissions to the buyer as much as the seller, and give the buyer incentive to buy from somewhere else.  Electricity doesn't have to be an exception, but it could be an exception.

Also see comments below, they're good.

A Very Modest Proposal

Jonathan Adler, who usually blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy, has a guest post at Megan McArdles Atlantic blog.  Now McArdle is your usual run of the mill lunatarian who think nothing through and knows really less but thinks she knows more.  Glib is a good one word description.  Adler is more constrained by the world.

In his post, Adler describes what he calls a conservatives approach to climate change.  The construction is interesting.  He starts by accepting the usual suspects case, praising Pat Michaels and friends analysis, but then does the reverse English

The position espoused by Michaels, Balling and most (but not all) skeptics is that anthropogenic global warming is occurring, but it is more of a nuisance than a catastrophe.  Some even argue that the net effect of climate change on the world will be positive, due to increased growing seasons, less severe winters and the like.  Were I a utilitarian, and if I placed substantial faith in such cost-benefit studies, I might find these arguments convincing, but I'm not and I don't.  Even if these skeptics are correct that global warming will not be catastrophic and that the net effects in the near-to-medium term might be positive, there are still reasons to act.

Accepting, for the sake of argument, that the skeptics' assessment of the science is correct, global warming will produce effects that should be of concern. 

and he has suggestions for fixes

First, the federal government should support technology inducement prizes to encourage the development of commercially viable low-carbon technologies.  For reasons I explain in this paper, such prizes are likely to yield better results at lower cost than traditional government R&D funding or regulatory mandates that seek to spur innovation.

Second, the federal government should seek to identify and reduce barriers to the development and deployment of alternative technologies.  Whatever the economic merits of the Cape Wind project, it is ridiculous that it could take over a decade for a project such as this to go through the state and federal permitting processes.  This sort of regulatory environment discourages private investment in these technologies.

Third, I believe the United States should adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax, much like that suggested by NASA's James Hansen.  Specifically, the federal government should impose a price on carbon that is fully rebated to taxpayers on a per capita basis. . 

Fourth and finally, it is important to recognize that some degree of warming is already hard-wired into the system.  This means that some degree of adaptation will be necessary.

Yet as above, recognizing the reality of global warming need not justify increased federal control over the private economy.  There are many market-oriented steps that can, and should, be taken to increase the country's ability to adapt to climate change including, as I've argued here and here, increased reliance upon water markets, particularly in the western United States where the effects of climate change on water supplies are likely to be most severe.

Eli does not agree with much of Adler's background material, and personally thinks that regulation can be both more efficient and less expensive, but those are things that can be debated.  If nothing else the Bunny would like to see Barry Bickmore discuss this with Adler.

Axe Grinding

A recent rather scary example of the speed of blogs and how even small mistakes can be amplified in service of serial axe grinding.  It is also a story of how news organizations and reporters can behave ethically in timely correction of mistakes.  

It may come as a surprise to many bunnies, but Joe Romm is really despised by many out there in Blogland.  The obvious come to mind, Tony Watts, Hans v. Storch, Keith Kloor, Roger Jr, etc., but in this particular case, David Appell (here, here and now here), and also many of the Kool Kids (that's you Weasel and James).  The latter class think that one should be, well, cerebral about the threats of major global warming, and well, Joe is hot.  Eli was holding off on this little tale to give it a chance to settle after the original  small burn, but it has gone thermonuclear and needs to be discussed immediately. 

Recently an article appeared in Reuters which quoted the Chief Economist of the IEA, Fatih Birol, as saying

 "When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet,"

Joe Romm picked this up but omitted the (2050) which turns out to be correct.  David Appell on the other hand, went into full attack mode on Romm for predicting a 6C change by 2050.  As the subsequent comments show, Romm did no such thing.

In fact, after reading the Appell post, Eli asked a question at ThinkProgress

1. Eli Rabett says:

   May 27, 2012 at 5:07 pm

   In the Reuters piece it says 6 C by 2050 which makes no sense. What did Birol really say?? any idea
   

   
   
   • Martin Vermeer says:

     May 29, 2012 at 6:00 am

     Good question Eli. I only find 2050 in the Reuters piece,
     “When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet,” Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist told Reuters.
     It’s not in Birol’s slides, and not in his transcript. And it doesn’t make sense.
     

     
     
     • Joe Romm says:

       May 29, 2012 at 6:08 am

       I meant to post that 2050 is obviously a mistake by the reporter.
       

       
       
       • Steve Bloom says:

         May 30, 2012 at 3:48 am

         If the 2050 figure did get mentioned, it could perhaps refer to a commitment to 6C by then given a continuation of current emissions trends.

Now one of the annoyances of blogs is that people would rather discuss endlessly what they thought somebunny said, rather than ask that bunny. Eli and others finally got Appell to write to Birol, but Birol is a big cheese, and no reply yet.  It occurred to the Rabett to write to the person whose byline appeared on the Reuters piece. So he did (much more background below in the letter)

Dear Sir

In a recent article published with your byline in Reuters

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/24/co2-iea-idUKL5E8GO6B520120524

Fatih Birol is quoted as follows

"When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050), which would have devastating consequences for the planet," Fatih Birol, IEA's chief economist told Reuters.

To be frank 6C by 2050 is risible, and there are good reasons to think that Birol simply said 6 degrees Celsius without a date including the IEA 2011 World Energy Report and a recent panel discussion in which he participated, where he said “the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius [11°F], which would have devastating consequences for the planet.”

http://carnegieendowment.org/files/112811_transcript_energyoutlook1.pdf

This has been picked up in several places, particularly by David Appell

http://davidappell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/11-f-warming-by-2050-no-way.html

who explains why 2050 is not reasonable by going through some of the numbers. Joe Romm while using the 6 C figure did not quote the date and, indeed there is some published work out there that there really is a chance of 6 C by 2100, though they predict a median of 5.1 C (not much of a difference).

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/climate-change-1002.html
http://globalchange.mit.edu/research/publications/1989
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/roulette-0519.html
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI2863.1

The question is what is the source for the 2050 date?

Thanks for your attention to what may on the surface appear to be a minor matter, but which, given the politicization of climate issues is likely to spread and to be used badly

E  

and received this useful reply from the reporter, Michael Rose

Dear Eli,

Thank you for your email. As you said in your message, Birol did not specify a date for that 6°C increase, and that’s why “by 2050” was between brackets in the story, to show that this was added by Reuters for context. Considering the target for a 2°C trajectory is 2050 and this is the timeframe always referred to in climate change discussions, we thought Birol was comparing like for like, or else why give a number and no date. After reading what you sent me, I’ll certainly check that with him and issue a correction if need be.

Cheers,

 It is so bad to be proven right.  Eli had hoped that with a quick resolution this would go away and was waiting for Reuters to catch up with Fatih Birol and get this straightened out, with perhaps a note on the original article, but alas, Hans von Storch put the boot in

A forth [sic] interesting issue is that climate science has become irrelevant; it shows up in passing, when "limit devastating climate effects like crop failure and melting glaciers" is mentioned, and the quote "the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (by 2050)" is made.This is a pretty bold prediction, given that we have so far less than 1 degree warming since pre-industrial times, so that the warming must be more than 5 degrees/38 years, i.e., about 0.7-0.8 deg/decade. I consider this pure alarmism, which is related to the timing, and a misuse of scientific analysis for creating some unsustainable short term drama for the Bonn-negotiations. I wonder if this 6-degrees claim is really from IEA, or just an addition by Fatih Birol, because is no not mentioned in the IEA's announcement. 

Eli got there a bit late in the comments

This attack on Joe Romm and Fatih Birol is an argument in bad faith which originated in David Appell's dislike of Joe Romm and which you are amplifying for similar reasons. The 2050 is an insertion by Reuters based on a misunderstanding.

On Appell's blog, Eli pointed this out and suggested that Appell ask Birol. In the discussion there scientific sources were found by others for the 6C claim in 2100. Eli himself has asked Reuters and received a response

Tony Watts has now leveraged your bad faith posting into an attack on Joe Romm.

Be proud

It had already bled over from the Pielkesphere into the Blogs of Denial and from there, but a short hop to the Capital, Wattsville

This is sad. Joe Romm promotes another overt fabrication, and some poor kid writes in despair, hoping all the “oil/coal people” here die “a horrible death, preferably caused by climate disasters”. If that were sent to somebody at ANU, it would by the Appell/Stokes rule, be declared a “death threat”. Since it’s on Romm’s site, the poster gets sympathy and counseling instead of admonishment. See below.

and they are off!!!  and how.  But Reuters has issued a correction

11:41 30May12 RTRS-CORRECTED-UPDATE 2-Global CO2 emissions hit record in 2011 led by China-IEA

(Corrects MAY 24 story to fix timeframe reference in fourth paragraph) 
  * CO2 emissions rose by 3.2 pct last year
  * China the biggest contributor to the global rise
  * Trend could have "devastating consequences" -IEA's Birol

  By Michel Rose 

  PARIS, May 24 (Reuters) - China spurred a jump in global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to their highest ever recorded level in 2011, offsetting falls in the United States and Europe, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday. 

  CO2 emissions rose by 3.2 percent last year to 31.6 billion tonnes, preliminary estimates from the Paris-based IEA showed.   

China, the world's biggest emitter of CO2, made the largest contribution to the global rise, its emissions increasing by 9.3 percent, the body said, driven mainly by higher coal use. 

  "When I look at this data, the trend is perfectly in line with a temperature increase of 6 degrees Celsius (towards the end of this century), which would have devastating consequences for the planet," Fatih Birol, IEA's chief economist told Reuters. 

Scientists say ensuring global average temperatures this century do not rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is needed to limit devastating climate effects like crop failure and melting glaciers.

They believe that is only possible if emission levels are kept to around 44 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2020.

Negotiators from over 180 nations are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until Friday to work towards getting a new global climate pact signed by 2015.

The aim is to ensure ambitious emissions cuts are made after the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of this year.

Procedural wrangling and a reluctance to raise ambitions to cut emissions due to economic constraints is threatening progress, however. (ID:nL5E8GLCRU]

"I think it would be unrealistic to think that there will be major breakthroughs very soon," Birol said.

"Climate change is sliding down in the international policy agenda, which is definitely a worrying trend."

 There are several morals here, certainly Reuters and Michael Rose, the journalist, behaved responsibly when informed of the issue, investigating and then issuing the correction.  Similar action may limit the damage that Appell and v. Storch are doing to their reputation.  In Watts' case the Bunnies strongly suspect what the answer will be. 

A day late for Memorial Day

Remembering the sacrifices of those who served will hopefully make us less likely to rush into unnecessary wars.

Another way to share the sacrifice is to spread the risk around.  I'm somewhat sympathetic to calls for a renewed draft as a way to make sure every class and social group is represented, but the military doesn't need that many people.  Below I'm copying a 2007 post from my old blog, on how in the absence of prior national service - either military or volunteer work - virtually anyone of any working age could be subject to a lottery for draft military service.  I'm not expecting it to happen, but it would be a fairer way to go about things, and likely have more peaceful results.

Making mandatory national service a choice

My idea for national service is to give young people a choice:

Alternative #1. Before they turn 25, begin serving for a shorter period of time than Alternative 2 would require. I don't know how long; it would depend on the need and could be somewhere between 12 to 24 months.

or

Alternative #2. Do no mandatory service before 25, but if the national need arises at any age before their retirement, based on a proclaimed national emergency like Bush's War on Terror, those who did not serve earlier and are chosen by lottery will be required to serve twice as long a time period as Alternative 1. Almost no one who failed to serve earlier would be exempt from the lottery.

That's the basic idea, although improvements are possible - you can adjust the incentives so that right number of people sign up for military versus nonmilitary national service, or sign up right away versus taking a chance on the lottery. I recognize that you probably can't make a worthwhile modern soldier out of someone for a useful period out of a total period of 12 months, but special support roles that require less training could be developed.

The key issue is that almost no one who skips the initial service gets out of the lottery. No, a sedentary 55 year-old won't be fighting door to door under this system, but he could very well help with paperwork in Baghdad or Kabul and take his chances along with everyone else. And no exemptions at all based on the person being more valuable doing whatever she happens to be doing currently when her number's called. This is a new social compact we're talking about, and economic efficiency arguments get trumped.

The economic efficiency of not fighting Bush's Iraq War, or ending it much sooner than will otherwise happen, is pretty obvious and a likely benefit if the general and older population had a much closer connection to people being sent involuntarily to Iraq.

Empathy First

RSAnimate brings a discussion of what we need to survive in the twenty first century

Canute Sets π = 3

Ethon was scanning the law books for the strangest laws when the Birdie came across a new one that has been proposed in North Carolina.  It seems that some are concerned with a new expert report prepared for the Coastal Resources Commission that forecast a one meter rise by 20102100.

A one meter (39 inch rise) is considered likely in that it only requires that the linear relationship between temperature and sea level that was noted in the 20th century remains valid for the 21st century (Rahmstorf, 2007). This level of rise is consistently encapsulated within all of the projections reviewed, and is not located at the upper or lower extremes of the projections. Given the range of possible rise scenarios and their associated levels of plausibility, the Science Panel recommends that a rise of 1 meter (39 inches) be adopted as the amount of anticipated rise by 20102100, for policy development and planning purposes.

Firetree has a mapping tool which allows bunnies to visualize what a 1 meter rise would do and more


A coastal economic development group, NC-20, was not exactly happy with this and located a tame physicist associated with the American Traditions Institute to dump upon it, John Droz, whose main thing appears to be dumping on wind power, but as is usual with these types can be relied upon to provide the needed cover.  Just like some of Eli's friends, Lomborg, Pielke, Kloor to name a few Droz advertises himself as a former environmentalist.  Droz has a Masters Degree in condensed matter physics from Syracuse and worked as an industrial physicist years ago, but has never published in the literature on climate.  He was happy to oblige.

They managed to get the Coastal Resources Commission to ignore its own science panel.  Eli would like to ask the members of the science panel why they are still members, but that is not the end of it.  A member of the NC legislature has introduced a bill 

These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise. Rates of sea-level rise shall not be one rate for the entire coast but, rather, the Division shall consider separately oceanfront and estuarine shorelines.

 It is important to recognize that building codes and regulations are  arbitrary. It would be prudent to base them on the best science as recommended by the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission's Science Panel on  Coastal Hazards but if local and state legislators decide to spin the  climate dice that is their right. If they are wrong it will be much  more expensive than dealing with the problem now, but they can do it and builders can always exceed the state minimums and advertise based on that.

However, they will not have the last word because there are the issues of insurance and bonds.  Anything built under the NC-20 standard that does not meet the one meter standard is going to have problems with the financial and insurance industries which already have this on its radar.  

FEV2Gen to support V2G

To translate, corporate Fleet Electric Vehicles could add power To backup Generators and push Vehicle-To-Grid technologies along.

V2G involves drawing power from electric vehicle batteries to supplement the power grid, instead of connecting the EVs to the grid solely for the purpose of charging up the EV to drive around (great info at University of Delaware).  This could have a lot of economic value by timing when you charge and release power from the batteries, and go a long way to support renewable power by providing power storage.  A related idea would take old EV batteries when they're no longer reliable enough for vehicles, but still have significant storage capacity, and using them as power backup.

For decades, people in developing countries have used regular car batteries for power supply.  In recent years, hobbyists have modified hybrid cars to power homes, and EV carmakers are finally starting to make that option available to individual buyers.  V2G experiments are happening, but we've got miles to go.

The water district that I help direct is considering spending $700,000 to $1 million to buy/upgrade two generators (100kw and 650kw) for our buildings.  We have to have power 24/7, especially when the Big One hits or if a major storm takes out power at the same time that it causes a flood.  We have a significant vehicle fleet of our own, and 700 employees who mostly drive to work.

If much of our vehicle fleet were to be converted to EV and networked to add to the power we'd receive from our generators, then we could either use less-powerful generators or extend the time that we can operate without system power.  As an additional step, we would also have a financial incentive to work out deals with our employees, providing them with financial incentives if the EVs they drive to work could be used to supplement generator power while they're there.

This is a miniature version of the V2G solution for broader society, operating in a situation where having the power would be extremely important and otherwise hard to obtain.  Other government agencies could be in a similar situation - they own a substantial vehicle fleet and need generator power.  Other places like hospitals may not have much of a fleet but would have employees there 24/7.  I think using your own fleet may be simpler at first, but working with employees is the next logical step.

Another advantage this system might have would be for transitory blackouts.  Backup generators are inefficient and polluting, while most blackouts are short.  Maybe we could have enough EVs attached so that for an initial period of 30 minutes or so, they provide all the backup power, and only if the power is still off does the generator kick in to stop battery depletion from happening too fast.  With luck, the generators would never be used at all except for testing and maintenance, something that California's air quality regulators might appreciate.

Having these systems might be good practice for and help acceptance of larger scale V2G, as well as being an additional incentive to just get more EVs on the market.

Just an idea at this point though....

Judith Curry Thinks Plans to Kill Her Colleagues Are Amusing

Judith Curry has endorsed plans for intimidating, beating, killing and maiming climate scientists as amusing but she probably would not do it herself.

In the comments over the Curry House, one Tucci 78 recommends

On the the contrary. When the “labels” fit, when they point out just how loathsome, just how evil, just how rotten these AGW fraudsters are and have always been, there should be no holding back, no restraint, no respite.

When the popular perception of these “Never let a crisis go to waste” leftist pseudoscientists is such that they find themselves at risk of physical assault whenever and wherever they show themselves in public, we can slack off. 

and

Figurative speaking (heavens, we don’t want to be censored, do we?), the recipe goes: Knock them down. Kick them until they quit moving. Check for breathing. Repeat.

and what does the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology say to all this:

curryja | May 24, 2012 at 9:23 pm |

Well Tucci78 is regarded as high entertainment by many of the regulars here. Not so much accepting his sentiments, as being entertained by his presentation of them.

 Now some speculate that this might be a Poe, but just in case it is not, Prof. Judith Curry who holds a responsible leadership position at Georgia Tech,  clearly believes that it would be amusing.

Eli eagerly awaits the reaction from Keith Kloor, Roger Pielke Jr., Richard Tol and Marc Morano.

Scrotum Returns

Run, do not walk, over to Hot Topic, where Scotum, Mycroft and Ethon save the Laird from the Chicago Mob

High up on the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster a huge golden eagle stretched its wings and preened an out of place feather. Below its razor sharp talons the clock chimed the quarter hour. Aethon was ready for action.

Latest update on our friends at Heartland

Guardian has a brief rundown.  I misunderstood previously what I think was John Mashey's point in the comments a while back, about the importance of a coal association showing up to support Heartland financially.  I thought that wasn't very surprising, but it seems that HI had been trying to maintain a facade of independence from that economic interest.  Not anymore, and maybe not even enough time to funnel the dollars through a masking fund.

Also interesting that Heritage Foundation, a right wing "think tank" hack job, would pitch in financial support for HI as a potential competitor.  Maybe the competition isn't all that fierce, or that Heritage prefers someone who's even more ridiculous than they are to provide a contrast.

Guardian also says HI lost board members, but no name.  Inquiring minds want to know.  UPDATE: ask and ye shall receive.

UPDATE 2:  As to Heritage being so generous, maybe they're not the ones making the call on that decision.  Page 93 of Crescendo to ClimateGate Cacophony shows lots of overlapping denialist donors.  Perhaps the donors decided the funding allocations were off due to a series of unfortunate events and prodded Heritage along.

Petroleum and Propaganda

In his important new book, James Lawrence Powell poses a remarkable paradox: climate scientists have a near-unanimous consensus that global warming is occurring now, is largely human-made, and will cause very severe environmental problems if humanity continues business as usual. However, among the lay public, the picture is much more mixed: only about half of the US public agrees with the climate scientists. 

Why the enormous discrepancy?

James Lawrence Powell answers in an important new book, The Inquisition of Climate Science. Powell describes the corporate funding of a vicious and successful attack on science. 

In a review/essay, Petroleum and Propaganda: The Anatomy of the Global Warming Denial Industry , I discuss Powell's book. Corporate funders (e.g., ExxonMobil) support a network of think tanks, of which Powell discussed four in detail: the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition, the Heartland Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  The think-tanks put out a steady stream of propaganda that denies global warming. Powell also describes briefly some individual popularizers and propagandists, mostly non-scientists but with a few scientists as well, typically with little knowledge of climate change.

The mass media typically gives equal weight to a handful of climate change deniers and to the vast majority of climate scientists. The fossil-fuels industry does not have to win a debate. They will gladly settle for a draw, because it gives the impression that the scientific community is deeply divided about whether or not global warming is real. "Doubt is our product", as a tobacco industry executive proclaimed while the tobacco industry pursued the same strategy that the fossil fuel industry is pursuing today.

Lowell briefly summarizes "Climategate," which he justifiably dismisses as much ado about nothing.

Inquisition is an indispensable book: anyone who cares about global warming should have a copy.

My essay appeared in the May 2012 issue of Monthly Review. The editors of the magazine have written an introduction, Notes from the Editors in which they say that my review essay "raises critical questions with respect to science, corporate propaganda, and the future of humanity."

Hide the Bunnies

The Australian Broadcasting Company Corporations Media Watch has followed up on the reports about abusive Email being sent to climate scientists in Australia.  There has been a lot of back and forth on this set off by a narrow FOIA request for examples of such sent to six scientists at the Australian National University.  A search turned up a few Emails which were at best vaguely threatening and were, after toing and froing were made public by the Privacy Commissioner.


Nick Stokes and Tony Watts were drawn into this on opposite sides and you can find lots of links here and there.  Watts and Co reported this as evidence of scare tactics.

Wanna be scared bunnies, Media Watch has just updated and Tim Lambert is on it.  Media Watch went back to the original article in the Canberra Times which reported threats to Australia scientists and had a few choice quotes among which were the generic "Die you lying bastard!", but Media Watch went further and asked two scientists that they suspected had received those letters and got an earful.

YOU  ARE A FUCKING LYING PIECE OF SHIT COMMUNIST !!!!!!!!!!!!
GO FUCK YOURSELF AND DIE YOU CUNT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EAT SHIT AND DIE TO LYING COMMUNIST ASSHOLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCKING TRAITOR TO YOUR FELLOW AUSTRALIANS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are nothing but a Traitorous Lying Asshole !!
The quicker that Cunts like you and your kind Die the better !!!!!!!!!!!!

GLOBAL WARMING IS THE BIGGEST FRAUD IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND !!!
PEOPLE THAT PROMOTE IT NEED TO BE PUT DOWN!

The names of the people who sent this trash have been redacted, however there is a lesson that is now being learned by George Tierney of Greenville South Carolina (corrected) and before that by  Paul Christoforo with a company called Ocean Marketing.

Natural Variability Is Not the Lukewarmers Friend

There have been a number of posts and comments about James Hansen's op ed in the NYTimes, featured here at Rabett Run, and of course, many other places.  As Eli predicted, the key graph for those in disagreement was

The global warming signal is now louder than the noise of random weather, as I predicted would happen by now in the journal Science in 1981. Extremely hot summers have increased noticeably. We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change. 

As he said then Eli's POV on this is rather simple.  If you have natural variability on top of a rising base, then the hotter extremes are going to get hotter and you don't need a degree in meteorology or statistics to figure that out, so the Bunny is with Hansen.  If you want to argue that it is going to cool like crazy Roy in the next decade, well, good luck with that, but Eli has a slightly used Sky Dragon to sell you. 

Andy Revkin, in particular was keen to go out and find disagreeers, in particular Martin Hoerling from NOAA, and Marty did disagree

This is patently false. Take temperature over the U.S. as an example. The variability of daily temperature over the U.S. is much larger than the anthropogenic warming signal at the time scales of local weather. Depending on season and location, the disparity is at least a factor of 5 to 10.

I think that a more scientifically justifiable statement, at least for the U.S. and extratropical land areas is that daily weather noise continues to drum out the siren call of climate change on local, weather scales.

Dot Earth arranged a further, more formal exchange of position papers between Hoerling and Dan Miller who worked with Hansen on the op ed.  As usual, Eli encourages all to RTFRs, but here he wants to call attention to Hansen's brief comment

I have several papers well along in the publication process that make clear your characterizations are far off the mark. The editors prefer, indeed are insistent, that I not discuss these in blogs. Some scientists may be able to spend their time blogging and e-mailing without a significant impact on their scientific productivity — I’m not one of them — but I do make an effort to make my papers understandable to a wide audience.

Dan Miller's paper at Dot Earth and Kate, over at Climate Sight, drew Eli's attention to Public Perception of Climate Change and the New Climate Dice by Hansen, Sato and Ruedy which was posted to arXiv April 5, so perhaps this is not one of the papers Hansen was specifically referring to, but phrases in the abstract show that it clearly bears.

"Climate dice", describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons relative to climatology, have become progressively "loaded" in the past 30 years, coincident with rapid global warming. The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased. An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (3{\sigma}) warmer than climatology. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth's surface in the period of climatology, now typically covers about 10% of the land area. It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming, because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small. We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing, climate change.

 The manuscript is there to be read, off you go little bunnies, but Eli wants to look at a key figure.

The authors examined the distribution of local anomalies using the 1951-1980 base period using local standard distributions.  This was also done for the Northern Hemisphere alone, and for other base periods.  The areas under each curve are normalized.  The black curve is a Gaussian and it should be noted that the 1951-61and 1961-71 distributions are slightly more peaked, with slightly less area in the cold and hot wings, in other words there are fewer extremes.

On the other hand (kenw that was coming didn't ja) with time after 1971, the distributions shift to hotter temperatures, and the shift increases with time, good additional evidence that global warming is continuing, but more importantly, the distributions noticeably broaden and the wings grow significantly.  Whereas before 1971 the probability of a 3 σ event was zilch, today it is well above the base line.

But wait, there is more.  Eli as an old curve eyeballer thought there were something funny about the purple curve and tried to fit it to a gaussian.
and sure enough, the fit is fine up to the peak, but on the hot side the blue Gassian is much lower than the observed frequency of hot anomalies beyond about 1 σ  This shift from symmetric Gaussian to skewed hot anomalies is as, if not more important for addressing the issue of whether extreme hot spells are meteorology or climatology.

Although Hansen, Sato and Ruedy have not discussed the skew, they have looked simply at the implications of the anomaly distributions and this explains their confidence about the source of the extreme summer anomalies

Seasonal-mean temperatures in the category defined as "cold" in 1951-1980 climatology (mean temperature below -0.43σ), which occurred about one-third of the time in 1951-1980, still occur with a probability about 10% over land areas. Thus an occasional unusually cool winter is not evidence against global warming. Temperature is less "noisy" in the summer than winter. The chance of summer falling in the "hot" category of 1951-1980 is now about 80% (Fig. 7). The climate dice are now loaded to a degree that the perceptive person (old enough to remember the climate of 1951-1980) should recognize the existence of climate change. 

The most important change of the climate dice is the appearance of a new category of extremely hot summer anomalies, with mean temperature at least three standard deviations greater than climatology. These extreme temperatures were practically absent in the period of climatology, covering only a few tenths of one percent of the land area, but they have occurred over about 10% of land area in recent years. The increased frequency of these extreme anomalies, by more than an order of magnitude, implies that we can say with a high degree of confidence that events such as the extreme summer heat in the Moscow region in 2010 and Texas in 2011 were a consequence of global warming. Rahmstorf and Coumou (23), using a more elegant mathematical analysis, reached a similar conclusion for the Moscow anomaly. 

It is not uncommon for meteorologists to reject global warming as a cause of these extreme events, offering instead a meteorological explanation. For example, it is said that the Moscow heat wave was caused by an atmospheric "blocking" situation, or the Texas heat wave was caused by La Nina ocean temperature patterns. Certainly the locations of the extreme anomalies in any given case are related to specific weather patterns. However, blocking patterns and La Ninas have always been common, yet the large areas of extreme warming have come into existence only with large global warming. Today's extreme anomalies occur because of simultaneous contributions of specific weather patterns and global warming.

Martin Hoerling has a hard walk back.