Franzen attacks Audubon's attempt to do something about climate, withholds info that he's on the board of competing organization

There have been repeated attempts to find a "Third Way" between doing something about climate change versus not doing much. They haven't worked. Now in comes Jonathan Franzen with another rambling take that isn't denialist but insists that people not deal with climate change except to the extent it involves things he personally cares about, like tropical habitat protection. He also disses National Audubon, repeatedly.

As Dave Roberts says, it's really bad, intellectually empty, and factually wrong (tho it does have some interesting stories about people not named Jonathan Franzen who are doing some helpful things for the planet). Roberts' description of people having a Climate Thing hangup is potentially helpful, but I think it may more be that many people just have a Thing. For Franzen it's helping birds immediately, for some technophiles it's pushing nuclear power, for Naomi Klein it's fighting capitalism* - and either climate change must serve that Thing or climate change must be secondary to that Thing. He's got a round hole and that better be a round peg coming its way, or he'll muddle to a reason why it should be round.

Joe Romm has the corrections to Franzen, and he also calls out the issue that hasn't had enough emphasis:

Yarnold was especially annoyed with the New Yorker for running this extended attack on Audubon supposedly neglecting bird conservation in favor of climate change without bothering to mention that Franzen sits on the fund-raising Board of Directors for the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), which Yarnold calls “a group that views itself as a competitor to Audubon.”

According to its website, “ABC is the only U.S.-based group with a major focus on bird habitat conservation throughout the entire Americas.” I know you probably thought the National Audubon Society — with its motto “Protecting Birds and Their Habitats” — did that, too. Such is avian eco-politics today.

In making his case that the National Audubon Society has lost its way, Franzen does explain that “I gave my support to the focused work of the American Bird Conservancy and local Audubon societies.”

Here is where things get very hypocritical — because there’s something much worse than the New Yorker not mentioning Franzen is on the board of ABC. Franzen never mentions that the conservation-focused bird group he is on the Board of … wait for it … also has a major effort to combat climate change! Indeed, ABC’s webpage devoted to “Threats to Birds – Global Warming” explains that “ABC has conducted research in conjunction with partners to ascertain what the ongoing and potential future threats are to birds from rising global temperatures, and has published reports detailing the concerns that have been revealed.”

Definitely read the whole thing. While this isn't a financial conflict of interest, I think it should have been disclosed. I'm also curious if Franzen has connections to the various projects he praises in the piece.

I'll add just one Franzen paragraph for the refuse pile:

But climate change is seductive to organizations that want to be taken seriously. Besides being a ready-made meme, it’s usefully imponderable: while peer-reviewed scientific estimates put the annual American death toll of birds from collisions and from outdoor cats at more than three billion, no individual bird death can be definitively attributed to climate change (since local and short-term weather patterns have nonlinear causes). Although you could demonstrably save the lives of the birds now colliding with your windows or being killed by your cats, reducing your carbon footprint even to zero saves nothing. Declaring climate change bad for birds is therefore the opposite of controversial. To demand a ban on lead ammunition (lead poisoning is the foremost cause of California condor deaths) would alienate hunters. To take an aggressive stand against the overharvesting of horseshoe crabs (the real reason that the red knot, a shorebird, had to be put on the list of threatened U.S. species this winter) might embarrass the Obama Administration, whose director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, in announcing the listing, laid the blame for the red knot’s decline primarily on “climate change,” a politically more palatable culprit. Climate change is everyone’s fault—in other words, no one’s. We can all feel good about deploring it.

Well, that makes no sense. The difficulty attaching identifiable harm to climate change in light of random weather that might have had the same effect anyway makes climate change even harder to use, not easier to use. It isn't impossible to attach that harm by the way, and Franzen also makes the typical mistake of saying that if you can't identify with certainty any specific incident as caused by your GHG emissions, then harm generally cannot be attributed to your emissions.

And as for FWS and the red knot, just read what FWS has to say:

The rufa subspecies of the red knot now will receive protection as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the Service announced today. “Unfortunately, this hearty shorebird is no match for the effects of widespread emerging challenges like climate change and coastal development, coupled with the historic impacts of horseshoe crab overharvesting, which have sharply reduced its population in recent decades,” said Service Director Dan Ashe.

The article shouldn't have been published.


*Might be unfair to Klein - I've read a lot about her most recent arguments but haven't read the book. Seems though that it's just what I read from her before.

Part II: The Etzioni Project Finds a Home

In Part I, the bunnies met the protagonists, the Tobacco Institute, Amiai Etzioni, a noted sociologist on the hunt for funding, and at the end the National Chamber Foundation, a non-profit affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce.  As we left them in late April 1990, the Tobacco Institute had agreed to fund Etzioni's proposal using the National Chamber Foundation as a beard.

In May  the Tobacco Institute Information Center started to pull documents for the Etzioni project

Articles on animal rights, record obscenities actions, and censorship are pulled daily for the Etzioni Project . Jamie Moeller and Jerry Johnson from O&M have sent materials over on these and related topics 

And Etzioni put together a proposal which was submitted in June to the National Chamber Foundation.  The impression Eli gathered from the LTDL documents is that Etzioni was the one who found the beard, but there is no direct proof of this in the LTDL.

The proposal did not come from the George Washington University where Etzioni was University Professor, but from the Center for Policy Research.  The unwary might think that the Center for Policy Research was a GWU research center.  But no, it was entirely Etzioni's creature which he founded in 1968 and in 1990 it was "headquartered where Etzioni lived  in the Watergate West.  One can get some idea about it from the 2005 990.

The budget had been reduced to $445,378.15, with Etzioni's take decreasing from $150,000 to $107,806 and some other minor changes with office expenses, and 18.5% overhead.  Probably covered the rent for a few months at the Watergate

Broadly speaking the preliminary proposal to the Tobacco Institute and the June proposal to the National Chamber Foundation are the same.  The June proposal has a bit of an advertisement

Etzioni conducted a study for the National Chamber Foundation, in 1984 on "Self-Dicipline, Schools and the Business Community," a study for which there are still numerous citations and reguestes for reprints.

But also some interesting wordsmithing that Willie Soon could have used

The project will be conducted, as all others by the Center for Policy Research, as a completely autonomous undertaking. There will not be direction from any outside sources on any matters concerning the content of the deliberations, findings, reports and other matters. The work will be conducted as typical procedures for grants, and not for contract work. Products will be available after one year (cases) and panel reports and tapes, after two years. 

Remember, that no bunny was in doubt about where the money was coming from and why and who it was going to.  Eli will return and show why this paragraph was not what it seemed at the end of this post.

The Tobacco Institute (TI) was not willing to buy a study in a poke and insisted on dividing the project into two parts.  Susan Stuntz of the TI and Ron Utt of the National Chamber Foundation (NCF), got together and decided to divide the 450K$ budget and work into two parts as Utt explained to Prof. Etzioni in a letter July 26, 1990

Since we last met, Susan Stuntz and I have discussed your proposal, "Extreme and Moderate Responses to Exercise of Individual Rights", and have explored several alternative ways of proceeding that would provide us with products that we believe will best fit the long-term interests of the Tobacco Institute, the National Chamber Foundation and the constituencies that they represent. We also discussed ways in which the overall study could be divided into increments that would allow all participants to evaluate progress to date and make determinations on the approaches to be taken in subsequent stages based on that progress.  

The first part would consist of case studies and the deliverable would be the case studies and a monograph.  After completion of the first part in one year, the TI would consider funding the second part, the wise guy evaluation of the case studies.

Etzioni knew that Susan Stuntz represented the Tobacco Institute in what they called the "Etzioni Project".  He was under no illusion as can be seen in his attempt to push back

There is another matter that needs to be clarified. The study will be conducted in the best tradition of academic research, not contract work, It will serve the long term interests of truth; the investigators will find whatever the evidence will point to. The reason we turned to the Foundation, rather than receive a grant from the Tobacco institute, is that we want to avoid even the appearance of working for anyone's special interests.

Except that Etzioni knew damn well that the MONEY was coming from the Tobacco Institute so this can be regarded only as an attempt to hide the actual source of the support by passing it through the NCF.

I have worked before for the Foundation* 1 have no trouble with its goal of establishing what is valid and fair. The study will serve no other goals. While I am always open to suggestions from all quarters, I will be accountable only to the Foundation, and to no one else.

As to our findings, like those of my previous report for the Foundation, these will be available to one and ail/ as is the case in ether academic reports. 

 At this point Etzioni appears to have cut off communication with the TI, and indeed drafting the budget and contract for Phase I of the Etzioni Project fell to Susan Stuntz and Ron Utt.  Sam Chilcote, Stuntz's boss notes on a memo complaining how long setting up the project is taking

It has taken a lot of time.  Is it still worth it

In the end it was not.  that is Part III.

By the beginning of September 1990 an agreement was in place between the Tobacco Institute and the National Chamber Foundation, which established the cost and the NCF's take

This letter agreement confirms that The Tobacco Institute will provide funding support for the project entitled, Extreme and Moderate Responses to Exercise of Individual Rights, to be undertaken by the Center for Policy Research under the auspices of the National Chamber Foundation. We understand that this project will be completed in two phases. Institute support for Phase I, which will begin on October 1, 1990, and is expected to be completed June 30, 1991, will total $137,000, and will include a 15 percent management fee to be paid to the National Chamber Foundation.

Evidently Etzioni wanted more upfront, as the original offer letter from the NCF offered $118,966.19 for the first year, while the second one budgeted $178.216 for year one.  Both contained a clause which gave the NCF (and by implication the TI) ownership and copyright to any work product including the case studies and the monograph

The National Chamber Foundation shall be the owner of the completed case studies and monograph and all rights therein, including without limitation the copyright and all reproduction rights throughout the world. The National Chamber Foundation will retain these rights through first publication. Subsequent to the National Chamber Foundation's first publication, both the Center and NCF shall retain rights to utilize the completed work. 

Now EINAL, but the clear implication of this is that the National Chamber Foundation, a contractor to the Tobacco Institute, would control publication.  If they objected, nothing would be published.

Etzioni accepted 

Part III will describe what happened to the Etzioni Project.

Amitai Etzioni and Willie Soon

Amitai Etzioni and Willie Soon are amongst the oddest of odd couples.  Soon, of course, is eminently forgettable, noticeable only for his incompetence and self regard, who, to keep the wolf from the door went looking for funding from the fossil fuel industry and delivered what was required.  Much of Soon's trouble arises from the conditions of his support, that he was to allow review by his funders and did not acknowledge their support in his publications.

Etzioni, one could argue, is one of the world's best known sociologists.  Got his own institute.  Got his own blog.  Got his own theory, communitarianism, which looks to Eli like an attempt to graft good neighborliness onto libertarianism.  Past president of the American Sociological Institute.  H number in the mid 40s.

But Eli has come across a chapter in Etzioni's past which draws him close to Willie Soon.  As the bunnies will see, Etzioni may, or may not have crossed the line to the dark side, but he certainly skated right on the line, if not over.  Not surprisingly the dark side for Etzioni was the tobacco industry and the source of documents that Eli found in this most tangled of tales was the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LTDL).  Not surprisingly Etzioni was much more skillful than Soon at maintaining implausible deniability.

The LTDL is not complete, but it does lay out one particular interaction of Etzioni in detail, a grant for a project entitled "Extreme and Moderate Responses to Exercise of Individual Rights".  This project appears to have grown from the Tobacco Institute Legislative meeting in early 1990.  Etzioni was paid a fee of $10,000 and first class travel expenses to discuss

. . . the general topic of "social trends" would be a very timely area for you to address. We can talk in more detail over lunch after the first of the year. We will, of course, provide you with a room and meals and will reimburse round-trip first class airfare for you and your guest. We will also pay an honorarium in the amount of $10,000.

It appears that one outcome of this meeting was a preliminary proposal that Prof. Etzioni submitted in February to the Tobacco Institute.  The hook, was the purpose of the proposed study

To examine reactions of the public to adults exercising choices which some segments of the public strongly disapprove, such as the wearing of furs, smoking, obsenities on records. To study the continuum of reactions, from censorship to violence, and examine their moral standing from the viewpoint of widely held public philosophies, such as libertarians, conservatives, communitarians and others.  

Early on the tobacco industry was very concerned with efforts to move smoking out of buildings and businesses.  One of their tactics was to claim that the rights of smokers were being ignored and that smokers were being persecuted.  A memo from 1984 catches some of this,

Pointing out that it's time to question this unbridled hostility toward smokers, we will then present the American Cancer Society's defense of their practices, with emphasis on the "Great American Smoke-Out ." This necessarily narrow defense will be put into broader perspective by a noted member of the psychiatric community, a spokesperson for the American Jewish community, or social behavioralist . Names that fit this category are 

 • Bruno Bettleheim
• Hyman Bookbinder
• Amitai Etzioni 

This juxtaposition of opinions will reveal the underlying denial of rights practiced by anti-smoking zealots . 

the objectives were to

• bring national attention to the abusive treatment of cigarette smokers instigated by the American Cancer Society; 
• to heighten the public's awareness of the increasingly hostile treatment of the American Cancer Society adherents in relation to those who chose to smoke cigarettes ;
• to demonstrate to the American people that the segmentation, of smokers is parallel to, that of the Jews in Nazi Germany, or blacks before the Civil Rights movement; that the American Cancer Society's practices have lead!to acts of physical and psychological violence against smokers, and the potential for even more . 

Deja vue all over again Eli knows, but the playbook was written by big tobacco and is being followed by big fossil.  In Etzioni's preliminary proposal there was an interesting comment about funding

Funding. While the project will be conducted, as all others by the Center for Policy Research, as a completely autonomous undertaking, in view of the strong sensitivities involved, the project will not be undertaken until there is funding from several different (at least three) sources.  

showing that Etzioni was, shall Eli say it, quite sensitive to being funded by the smokey side, at least alone and displaying the sort of caution that would have served Willie Soon well.

The Tobacco Institute Executive Committee met on April 5, 1990 to consider the preliminary proposal.  After some scene setting

OVER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, THERE HAVE BEEN CASES OF SCIENTISTS CENSORED WITH THREATS OVER FUNDING OR TENURE IF THEY GOT INVOLVED WITH THE SMOKING ISSUE IN A DISPASSIONATE, OR OBJECTIVE WAY. THERE HAVE BEEN AIR TRAVELERS HARASSED OR ARRESTED IN DISPUTES OVER SMOKING ON AIRCRAFT. . . 

The Etzioni project was described

ETZIONI HAS PROPOSED TO EXAMINE PUBLIC REACTION TO ADULTS EXERCISING CHOICES WHICH SOME SEGMENTS OF THE PUBLIC STRONGLY DISAPPROVE SUCH AS SMOKING OR THE WEARING OF FURS. HE WILL LOOK AT THE RANGE OF REACTIONS FROM CENSORSHIP TO VIOLENCE AND EXPLORE THE POLARIZATION NOW FACING THIS SOCIETY ON A NUMBER OF ISSUES.

The project was to have an "incident" gathering first phase (think nut picking) which would be presented to a panel of wise guys who would prepare a report the goal of which was to demonstrate 

THE GOAL OF THE FINAL PRODUCT IS TO DEMONSTRATE THE BREAKDOWN OF DIALOGUE IN THIS SOCIETY WHEN ANTI-GROUPS THREATEN AND ATTACK THOSE WHO MIGHT DISAGREE OR ENTERTAIN A CERTAIN LIFESTYLE. IT WILL SHOW THE ANTI-GROUPS CANNOT TOLERATE COMPROMISE AND THAT IT IMPACTS ON NUMEROUS ISSUES, NOT JUST SMOKING.

Good to know what the research would conclude.  Of course, the resulting report

. . . WILL BE PUBLISHED BY THE CENTER AND WILL BE MARKETED TO OPINION LEADERS IN THE NEWS MEDIA, COLUMNISTS, LEGISLATORS AND OTHERS CONCERNED ABOUT INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND THE DIRECTION OF THIS SOCIETY.

The Center, which would publish the report was Etzioni's Center for Policy Research.  The marketeers would be big tobacco.  The Tobacco Institute was on board with Etzioni's suggestions for three of the wise guys, Robert Nozik a libertarian, Michael Walker a communitarian and Herbert Stein from AEI.

Etzoni submitted a budget for $516,186 for both phases, including $150,000 for the principal investigator, Etzioni.  Susan Stuntz of the Tobacco Institute had an interesting comment on the later amount in an April 25, 1990 memo

Per our discussion, I asked several of the Public Affairs consultants for their advice on a fee for Etzioni. Their estimates ranged from $150,000 - $250,000. The high estimate would include publication of a book on the issue, which is not contemplated in this proposal. The estimates are based in part on fees that would be charged by an individual like Nobel Prize winning economist James Buchanan, for a similar project.

Eli's friend Jules of the Klimaatblog has posted on the involvement of economists as paid help for the tobacco lobby and a longer article is in preparation.

The Tobacco Institute also saw the need for not having their fingerprints all over Etzioni's study.  The Executive Committee presentation foresaw that Etzioni would take care of this

HOWEVER, WE CAN'T BE ALONE IN THIS. IT WILL ALSO HAVE TO INVOLVE THE COOPERATION OF OTHER INDUSTRIES IF IT IS TO BE CREDIBLE AND EFFECTIVE. PROFESSOR ETZIONI WOULD CONTACT OTHER INDUSTRIES ONCE THE THIRD ISSUE IS FINALIZED.

While that appears not to have worked, the US. Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying group that Etzioni had worked with before was pleased to wash the Tobacco Institute money.  Stuntz continued

I have not yet shared this final budget with Etzioni, but am prepared to do so with your approval. At that point, I will return to the U.S. Chamber. 

Part II tomorrow will describe how the US Chamber of Commerce provided cover for the Tobacco Institute and Prof. Etzioni through its National Chamber Foundation.  This must have been decided between the April 5 Executive Committee meeting and the April 25, 1990 Stuntz memo.

Having opened this box, allow Eli to post here an image of what passes for a smoking gun in this case

Good work if you can get it, 50K$ for writing an eight page proposal . 

Another April Fools Prank

About four months ago the first view CO2 data was released from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory covering October to November and the blogs of science denial went mad.

tallbloke says:

January 31, 2015 at 6:50 pm

It could get interesting at Paris when ‘the west’ demands huge sums of money from Brazil and the forested African and Asian nations for their countries’ huge net CO2 emissions, no?

From Bishop Hill

Is the "data" 'unfiltered', 'raw', 'unadjusted'? Who decides the colours? How is the "measurement" depiction calibrated and against what 'gold' absolute? What are the normative values / colours?...please don't keep me in suspense....I'm simply dying to know.

and a quote from Uncle Murry

Large values, in yellow and red, are a signature of source regions. Notice, they are not found in the industrialised centres - the Ohio river valley of the US, or western Europe or even China. Rather, they appear in the Amazon basin, tropical Africa and South East Asia. Those regions have little human population, let alone industrialisation

Murry Salby

Eli tried to play nice

This pattern has been observed from space for many years by GOSAT and SCIAMACHY. The part of the pattern shown here emphasizes agricultural burning across Brazil and Central Africa. You can get an idea of the pattern changes over a year here. Also here but not so prettified but with some links to papers.

Finally, it's a new year, try not to be so silly.

But it did not really work

Haha, that's some pretty widespread "agricultural burning". You'd think someone might have noticed.

and

"Finally, it's a new year, try not to be so silly." That's rich coming from someone who thinks he's a rabbit.

To be honest, some others stepped up to the plate

If you look at the time lapse simulation of CO2 concentrations here: https://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/mists-of-time-missed/

And stop it around 2006/10/14 it matches the OCO map quite well, really no surprises. According to the audio on the time lapse simulation the higher CO2 levels in South America and Africa are indeed from the burning of fires. The CO2 hotspot near Greenland is a result of a swirling motion from the CO2 produced in the USA.

I'm with Judith Curry on this one, the evidence for man made CO2 increase by burning carbon fuels is extremely robust.

The evidence that rising CO2 concentrations in the PPM range will change the climate or cause significant warming is, on the other hand, very weak.

Jan 2, 2015 at 3:31 PM | Redbone

Stephen Richards

Actually Eli Rabett is correct - you can see maps of fire activity here, and if you scroll on to October 2014 you can clearly see the fires in Brazil and southern Africa.

Jan 2, 2015 at 4:15 PM | Richard Betts

Willard Tony excelled, 

NASA’s new Orbiting Carbon Observatory shows potential tectonically-induced CO2 input from the ocean?

Guest Blogger / January 2, 2015

Guest essay by Martin Hovland, Geophysiscist and Professor Emeritus, Center for Geobiology, University of Bergen, Norway

Eli will leave the comments to Sou, especially since WT and his merry trolls (yes you Smokey) terminate Eli's erudite comment with, well, regular regularity.  Blame yourselves boys.

The OCO-2 team has now established a site for data release and shown a few products including the Nov 21 to December 29 measurements

which show, among other things, some continued agricultural burning in Africa, and increases in the northern hemisphere which de-greened in the late fall, resulting in low absorption of CO2 emissions, both natural and from us.  Marty Hovland's volcanoes  have taken time off to go to the beach.

There was another interesting map released showing recent nadir views (which only make sense over land)

These agree quite well with earlier satellite measurements.  Of course, by next April there will be a map of annual emissions and Eli can have more fun

There was one interesting question @ the good Bishop's, why the OCO-2 was not in polar orbit so CO2 over the poles could not be measured.  The usual conspiracy theories were hatched, but the answer simply is that OCO-2 was designed to and now is flying with the A-train, a series of Earth observatories that are in (EXCERT ELI'S MISTAKE HERE - see corrections in comments from Ken and Magma) sun synchronous polar orbit.  OCO-2 cannot observe at high latitudes because of the sun angle that is needed for observations

Eli gives you the Duke for your listening pleasure

It's the Dragons, No It's the Trolls, NO It's the Sun

Well, it's silly season again, and Nature has a good one and it is open

Emerging evidence indicates that dragons can no longer be dismissed as creatures of legend and fantasy, and that anthropogenic effects on the world's climate may inadvertently be paving the way for the resurgence of these beasts.

and another taste

Further work has revealed that the early medieval period was a veritable paradise for dragons. This can be attributed to the period's unusually warm temperatures Fig. 2 and an abundance of knights, the beasts' favourite combatant and food. It was also a time when wealth and status were measured in terms of gold and silver — the preferred nesting material for Western dragons. As a result, the major needs for living, feeding and, crucially, relaxation were readily available to dragons, allowing populations to flourish. The roasting of flesh and the indiscriminate demolition of hovels and castles became commonplace.

However, Fergus Brown points out that it's not the dragons but their grooms, the trolls who have time to get up to no good when their masters are busy burning down villages

But the new research is truly unbelievable. "According to the data gathered," we were told by lead scientist Arne Illbebaackersson, "we have historically vastly underestimated the volume of emissions generated by Trolls and other quasi-human entities. Once these new estimates are incorporated into climate models the correlation becomes obvious." 

And, as Lars Karlsson points out, this all was well known to Hubert Lamb, who, unfortunately was sworn to secrecy by the trolls after the dragons burned down his Stevenson screen.  Fortunately for John Mashey, Lars has uncovered the original which will be added to John's research results

 

With mounting evidence of the real cause of climate change, Fergus also points out the Guardian kicking off the silly season, also known as the British election campaign (Cameron should have known better than to set the first day of the campaign when he did).

Rabett Run eagerly awaits the response these bombshell papers by the Pastifarian Church

Yet mounting video coverage shows that it's the sun

At 8:02am today, SunCommon notified the Agency of Natural Resources of a massive solar spill. Attempts to limit this discharge have failed, and it appears that the spill will continue unabated. Unchecked, this incident is pouring solar radiation the equivalent of 3 billion gallons of gasoline across Vermont’s landscape – every day.

Eli is not adverse to adding other links and bits and pieces.

Technical and Esoteric and No Part of Chris Horner's Business

Following up on having their teeth kicked in by the Virginia Supreme Court in their quest for Mike Mann's Emails, Chris Horner and his sidekick David Schnare,  have filed a number of FOIA requests seeking Email from various climate scientists.  Strangely, nowhere can Eli find Roger Pielke Jr. or Bjorn Lomborg railing against that dynamic duo, now doing business as the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute.  Given the rapidity of how they change the name of their shells, Eli might think that business is not excellent.

Today the Union of Concerned Scientists brings word of the Arizona Superior Court handing another set of dentures to the gentlebunnies from E&E (as the Court labels them, perhaps accidental but quite appropriately) .  It was a remarkable decision.

The defendants, the Arizona Board of Reagents, had provided the Court a sample of 90 representative Emails from 1700.  The Court, kinda was like an undergrad with Spring Break reading assignments

The volume and complexity of the records at issue is daunting. Initially, AzBOR provided the Court a CD with approximately 90 emails described as representative of all those requested. While reviewing 90 emails may seem like a relatively easy task, such was not the case here. The emails ranged from one or two pages to multiple pages to at least one exceeding 800 pages in length. Further, to describe the content of the emails as technical and esoteric is an understatement. Many hours were spent reviewing the emails and, by no stretch, was the Court able to fully comprehend the substance of the emails.

At which point everybunny agreed that the 90 Emails were representative and that they did not need a special master or to spend their lives litigating each Email.  The question was, did the  Regents properly withhold the Emails from E&E's FOIA request.

The answer of the Court was comprehensively yes, but for interesting reasons.  Arizona law holds that

“ . . ., the law also recognizes that an unlimited right of inspection might lead to substantial and irreparable private or public harm; thus, where the countervailing interests of confidentiality, privacy or the best interests of the state should be appropriately invoked to prevent inspection, we hold that the officer or custodian may refuse inspection.” 141 Ariz. at 491.

In other words, using FOIA as harassment is not allowed if it causes public or private harm.  Among the categories that the Court held were not subject to inspection were Emails which contained student and personal information, correspondence with attorneys, information about on going research projects and information about prepublication peer review.

What is left are Emails about "prepublication critical analysis, unpublished data, analysis, research, results, drafts, and commentary".  The Court narrowed the question about this to whether the Regents withholding the documents was capricious or arbitrary and answered that

When the release of information would have an important and harmful effect on the duties of a State agency or officer, there is discretion not to release the requested documents. Arizona Board of Regents v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 167 Ariz. 254, 257-58, 806 P.2d 348, 351-52 (1991). After weighing the evidence presented in this matter, the Court cannot conclude that by withholding the remaining emails for the reasons stated, AzBOR abused its discretion or acted arbitrarily or capriciously.  

Schnare and Horner lose.

This is, IEHO, a very important statement that the government of the State of Arizona and its people have a vital interest in supporting the research of scientists at state universities and in state agencies and assuring that they cannot be harassed by those engaging in hackery for fun and profit that Rick Perlstein calls the long con.

And yet this stuff is as important to understanding the conservative ascendancy as are the internecine organizational and ideological struggles that make up its official history—if not, indeed, more so. The strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers points up evidence of another successful long march, of tactics designed to corral fleeceable multitudes all in one place—and the formation of a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.

The World Turned Upside Down

In the 1970s investment in renewable energy was killed dead by the realization that the Saudi's could drop the cost of oil to zero making any capital investment in wind and solar foolish, that and the relatively high cost of wind and solar at the time made it certain that the cost curve for renewables would not reach that of oil and coal within the investment horizon.

Fossil fuel energy sources have relatively low capital costs and high (cost of fuel) running costs. Today, no one has any idea of what the price of oil will be next month, let alone next year or the next decade.  Having seen a close to $(US)100/bbl swing within a year, planning is not possible.

The extraction cost of coal is low, but again, anybunny investing in fossil coal plants has to worry about pollution control costs and costs imposed in the future to pay for other externalities such as putting the top back on mountains and disposing of the ash and overburden.

Renewables are the reverse, high up front capital cost and low running costs with large recent cost drops driven by improved manufacturing.  With over half a decade of low interest rates behind us and no indication of any inflation at all in the developed world, capital costs todaydo not carry high interest, and investment in renewables looks attractive to any organization, even the ones in Texas.

Tom Dart in the Guardian reports that Georgetown, a town of 50,000 in Texas, is planning to go 100% wind and solar.

When its staff examined their options last year, they discovered something that seemed remarkable, especially in Texas: renewable energy was cheaper than non-renewable. And so last month city officials finalised a deal with SunEdison, a giant multinational solar energy company. It means that by January 2017, all electricity within the city’s service area will come from wind and solar power.

This is a 25 year deal.  Especially in Texas, wind and solar have strong advantages, guaranteed (and low) pricing amongst them

The region bordering New Mexico is one of the prime solar resource sites in the US and the wind whistles across the plains to such an extent that, as Scientific American pointed out last year, the state is America’s largest wind power producer – as well as leading the nation in the production of crude oil and the emission of greenhouse gases. 

Renewable energy also uses much less water than traditional power generation – a bonus in a state where half the land and more than nine million people are affected by drought conditions, though Briggs said that for Georgetown, water conservation was only a “side benefit”.

Today relatively expensive W. Texas crude is at more risk from Saudi petro-politics than wind and solar.  Indeed, many commentators thought that the Saudi's dropping the price of oil was directly aimed at killing off the frackers and further expansion of oil drilling in the oceans rather than renewables.

Have Another Drink

Continuing the story of Vlad and Est

No SUVs on Mars, and no warming either

After reading recently that pits in the Mars polar CO2 ice caps were determined to be cyclical and not evidence of Martian climate change, I thought I'd do a cleanup post.

Time was that denialists relied on rather thinly-sourced evidence of potential warming on Mars to say it's proved, proved I tell you, that the warming that Earth has not even experienced came from the Sun. You saw and heard stuff like this:

I could've sworn that the SUV reference came from Michael Crichton originally, but digging around didn't confirm it.  Inhofe was into it, though. Here's the 'scientific' source of the claim:

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. 

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.

So much for that.

To be sure, we don't necessarily know what's happening on Mars, we haven't studied it as long and as closely as Earth. Solar irradiance is well studied though and not the cause of the warming we're seeing on EArth. 

Pesticide drinks for thee but not for me

Patrick Moore, the climate denialist who falsely claims to have helped found Greenpeace (UPDATE: facts are unclear, see David Lewis' comments. Either the pre-2008 documents were wrong or someone did dubious editing at Greenpeace) most recently offered his expertise to deny any health risks associated with glyphosate. Embedding the video didn't work, so here's the link to it, and key dialog below:

Moore:  you can drink a whole quart of it [glyphosate] and it won't hurt you. 

Interviewer:  You want to drink some? We have some here. 

Moore:  I'd be happy to, actually. Not, not really, but... 

Interviewer:  Not really? 

Moore: I know it wouldn't hurt me. 

Interviewer:  If you say so I have some glyphosate... 

Moore:  I'm not stupid. 

(cross-talk) 

Interviewer:  So it's dangerous, right? 

Moore:  People try to commit suicide with it and fail fairly regularly. 

Interviewer:  Let's tell the truth, it's dangerous. 

Moore:  It's not dangerous to humans, no it's not. 

Interviewer:  So you are ready to drink one glass of glyphosate? 

Moore:  No I'm not an idiot. 

Shortly afterwards, Moore cuts off the interview and walks away.

Funny but also sad that an old man like that is so ready to lie. Drinking glyphosate is something that's okay for other people, but he's not stupid enough to actually believe the things he's saying.

I wonder if he continues to use the "you can drink it" line in contexts where he can't be challenged with a glass.

Ringberg 2015: Andy Dessler ECS > 2K and more

POSTSCRIPT:  The presentation slides for all the talks are now posted and Gavin has a post on Real Climate

Andy Dessler posted his Ringberg 2015 talk on climate sensitivity.

Exhausting

Eli is famous for finding simple solutions to complex problems, although also aware that while every complex problem has a simple solution it is often wrong.  Be that as it may, the recent post about indoor air pollution pointed out that the problem, and it is a big one, is not the cooking stove, but the exhaust, better put the lack of it, because it is real hard to ween anyone away from their accustomed way of fooding and because of that, introduction of fancy dancy cooking stoves has not worked.  Worse, although many are burning shit (dried shit, but shit none the less) or dead plants, and these are not ideal fuels, they are cheap fuels and there is no hope of weaning the poor away from them as long as they are poor.

Now the moral of the tale here is that Eli is perturbed, nay angry, that the following simple solution occurred to the bunny when egged on by Tom Fuller.  Angry?  Well it means that Eli can no longer think of Tom as useless, but here it is.   Tom ended a comment with

Your argument about the ventilation being the problem rather than the cooking is true, but really reminds me of what a SF comedian used to say--'Guns don't kill people. It's those darn bullets.' 

To which Eli replied off the tip of his ears

For venting, even a small fan run off solar electricity in the wall near the cooker could make a significant contribution.

But this is not such a bad solution, because moving the effluvia out of the house, while it would not completely solve the problem, would certainly minimize it and save much health and lives.  So, of course, there is always the google and the google found a solution, a small exhaust fan with an integrated solar cell panel that could easily be put into just about any house or hovel.  Turns out, and on reflection, no surprise, that such things are made for RVs.  Still probably too expensive, this one is $25.67, but in large quantities, maybe not made so well, it looks like it could make a difference.

Put a simple screen filter on it and it would be even better.  The fan units are designed to be mounted on RV roofs, on top of plumbing vents and come with a one year guarantee.  Just the sort of thing that people could donate to organizations like Heifer International or Oxfam or the Gates Foundation could buy by the millions.

On Cooking Steak

Since Rabett Run appears to be working on the culinary side, and the first steak has been thrown out opening the barbecue season in the Northern Hemisphere Eli thought he would share a useful trick.

The problem with cooking steaks or roasts is to get a nice crusty outside while leaving the center, well, unshoeleathered, or the inverse, with the center nice and the shade of red you like while the outside is pasty brown.

What the Bunny is about to betray is one of those utterly revolting secrets that works on the thickest steaks and roasts without the expense and time necessary for using a sous vide.

Build the hottest fire you can, or turn the broiler up to nuclear or heat the frying pan red hot  THEN toss the steak into the microwave for a minute to three or so minutes.  Season the steak with salt and pepper and a little olive oil.  The time for microwaving depends on how red you want the center, from blu to rare to medium rare.  That takes a bit of trial and error and the degree of doneness should be a bit less than you want to eat because of what follows. Another benefit is that even for thick cuts, the meat is evenly done inside.  A little more olive oil, maybe even butter and salt and pepper at this point is a good thing.

You then toss the steak onto the fire, into the oven, into the pan, in front of the blowtorch, into the pit of hell, whatever and crust the outside.  This procedure shortens the cooking time by separating cooking the inside and the outside.

On Cooking

This started out to be a very very very very snarky take on why Bjorn Lomborg, Roger Jr. and assorted others are just dangerous when they go on about how coal electrification is needed to eliminate indoor pollution in Africa and Asia, but indoor pollution from cooking and heating using biomass or coal is a huge problem, killing many each year, and among many there is a dangerous naivety.

Further, this problem is no secret, and there is a considerable literature, easily found, but allow Eli a few moments to lay it out.

The first point is that the issue is not fuel, but ventilation.  Many bunnies have, or have prior experience with wood stoves and the older amongst us with coal stoves.  While there are issues with external air pollution, a good chimney moves the problem out of the house.  Of course, if your house is a hut or less, a good chimney is well beyond the cost of your house.

The second point is that the poor will always use the cheapest fuel, that is why they are called the poor, so substituting a more expensive fuel such as LPG or natural gas and certainly not fossil fuel generated electricity simply does not work.   It has been tried.  Further, in poor places, an entire infrastructure has been developed to provide biomass fuel of all types, if you forbid burning of biomass, many people who were making a bare living providing the fuel no longer have an income.

The third point is that a better, more efficient stove has value, the value is in lower pollution because the burning is more efficient, less fuel needed, e.g. less deforestation, etc., but the problem, of course is that better stoves are more expensive and unfamiliar.  There have been successes, but these involved subsidies for the stoves, creating local industries to manufacture the stoves, and careful attention that the stoves were not far removed from what people were used to cooking on so that there was no culture shock. Improved cookstoves designed in a laboratory for maximum efficiency and minimum pollution without consideration of convenience and how people cook simply are rejected even when handed out for nothing. Solar cookers run headlong into this problem.

OK?  Eli will turn the snark machine on again, but do go do some reading.  Here is a review article.

Majic Words

From Forecast the Facts a bit of interplay about FEMA's new rules on disaster planning in view of climate change.  Government employees in Rick Scott's Florida have a problem

Arguing From Both Sides of Their Wallets

Bleating about the poors from the receiving end of one percenter funding is a sure marker that the debate is going badly for them.  They only pretend to care when they profit from the pretend.

Consider the response when bunnies point out that the first big losers from climate change are going to be the South Asians and the Africans:  Ain't happening, not our problem is what Eli hears from the Willard Tony crowd. The good Bishop blesses the happening. The Luckwarmers snipe from the sidelines, more into the game than the reality.  But reactionaries know that those seeking to limit damage from climate change and environmental degradation have a concern for others and the Earth which is why they try it on in an attempt to slow down progress

Allow Eli to step back to yesteryear, in some sense to yesterdays, or the days before, when Rabett Run pointed out the amoral use of the "hurting the poors" argument in the Spectator, which he found in a jeremiad by Fred Singer.  Singer, of course, is quite the amoral contortionist, but he outdoes himself, when on one page he berates those concerned with the ozone depletion for harming the poors

The bitter irony, not mentioned in the article is that even if the CFC-ozone theory were correct in all respects, darker skinned people living in the tropics would get none of the alleged benefits of "protecting" the ozone layer.  The depletion of ozone is calculated to occur mainly at middle and high latitudes, and skin cancers are confined almost exclusively to fair-skinned people.  What then is the incentive for tropical nations to phase out CFCs?  And if they don't go along, will it be worthwhile for the developed countries to impose high costs on their citizens for a negligible return, in the absence of full international participation

forgetting (even then Fred was very old and very deviously delusional and very well paid to write such stuff) that a page back he had accused the developing countries of extorting the developed world

Of course, the key to the CFC content of the atmosphere is eventually in the hands of the developing countries that make up the bulk of the world's population.  These countries have asked for side payments, properly referred to as bribes, in order to accede to the Protocol. . . . 

To the developing countries the Protocol is simply a means to advance their concept of "international equity" which began nearly 25 years ago with the New International Economic Order.  "China and India threatened to increase their uses of CFCs, thereby breaking the Montreal Protocol if the fund were not approved.  Harris then recounts how the United States finally gave in to blackmail by "the major international donors joined with the developing states and the World Bank"

Substitute Agenda 21 for the New International Economic Order, coal for CFCs and the same nonsense can be found in every James Inhofe wanna be speak.  It really gets quite old.  Fred, of course, is not one to miss a trick, and after accusing the developing world of extorting payments, goes on to moan about how loss of CFC's would hurt the people of the developing nations, which, of course, assumes no benefit from those "bribes".

This is really quite spectacular, first S. Fred argues that the developing nations want financial help for adopting the Montreal Protocols and phasing out CFCs, and this is greedy of them.  Then he argues that the developing nations and their people would not be hurt by ozone depletion so they should not adopt the Montreal Protocols.  A new high for convenient cognitive dissonance.

Eli inquires:  Has Bjorn Lomborg hired Fred Singer as chief ghost writer?

Immature post of the day

That is all.

A Rashomon update on climate betting

So 2015 is coming in hot, .75C in January and .79C above base period in February, and nothing indicating that March is cooling. The rest of the year can be slightly colder than 2014 and still end up a record, the first time since 1998 that we had record years back-to-back.

While short term data on climate isn't especially meaningful, I have a particular interest in this - in addition to the minor issue of human and environmental welfare, I've got $9,000 riding on it. David Evans and I made a series of bets in 2007, and 2015 is the first year that starts counting against the baseline. David has the details here, but to sum up it's comparing 5-year averages, and we're betting both on temps warming either somewhat less than IPCC projected for the next few decades or much less (David acknowledges some warming is possible). I need temps to increase .13C/decade over the 2005-2009 baseline to win one bet and not lose/void the other one, and .18C/decade to win both.

The Rashomon aspect comes from whether the bet looks like good news or bad news depending on your focus. I'm winning the first two months of the five year period from 2015 to 2019, which is good for me but not all that definitive. Prior to 2015, comparing years that didn't count, I was losing the bets, and prior to 2014 I was losing them badly.

One way to view it:  if you focus just on the stats and forget all your priors about the science, and if you ignore the stats for the many years preceding the baseline period, then I think you'd rather be in David's shoes than mine, despite my little head start. If 2015 stays warm at the end of this year then you might feel differently, even retaining this constrained viewpoint.

I think it's a reasonable perspective, but too constrained. If you look at a longer period and consider reasonable scientific priors about what you expect to happen, then I think I still have good bets. There's also what I said in 2007 that I "at worst lose one bet, win most of them, and void the rest." I also said I had the best chance of losing the early 10-year bets as opposed to the longer 15 and 20 year bets. Not so different from my expectation.


The other interesting bet to look at is James Annan's, where he's over halfway through the determining period for his bet. He's coy about it but he's trouncing his betting partners who thought temps would actually decline compared to 1998-2003.

A perspective I think would be interesting to hear from is the two men he's betting with. While their economic interest would be to wait and hope for a miraculous change, they have other reputational interests. Rather than continuing to be wrong this year and for the next two years and then finally paying up, I'd end the period of being wrong now if I were them, write James a check, and start being right.

The Future for Popcorn Is Bright

Some time ago, back at the beginning of time, Eli pointed out that the Obama administration was offering Republicans in Congress a choice between the lady and the tyger on passing laws regulating CO2 emissions, and of course, as everyone knows, the Republicans chose the tiger. 

About a week ago, Mitch McConnell told Republican governors to blow off the EPA and not bother to file a state plan to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

Today, the Federal Emergency Management Administration named the price

 Starting next year, the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address climate change.

and as the song goes,

There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.
Takes money to plan for that.
If you don't want it, don't complain

This takes effect in March of 2016, before the next general election in the US.  The thing that Mitch and his friends don't appreciate is that Obama does not get mad, ask Osama.  Oh wait. . .

Planning Your Winter Ski and Skate Party

The winter is over, none too soon for some, and ho-hum for others.  Naturally when something is over, the Rabett household turns to planning for the next.  Where shall we have our ski and skate party next winter, Ms. Rabett inquires in that start saving for the expedition voice of hers.  Ms. Rabett is quite fond of travel which she regards as the only up side, besides plumbing, of Eli's vocation.

What about visiting your sister in the far north of New England Eli replies in the fond hope of perhaps coming in under budget.  Too much snow she says and besides it is cold.  Well, the Rabett points out, we hear that that is not too much of a problem in Sweden.  Eli's friend RayP writes that Vasaloppet week is on life support with the 15,800 cross country skiers hot on the trail of  King Gustave Vasa dependent on artificial snow being trucked in, and it is getting too warm to make the snow.

Last year the race was nearly canceled because key parts of the track were too boggy to allow passage of the equipment used to deliver snow and maintain the track. The race was rescued only at the last minute through rescued only by artificial snow.
I was not one of those 15,800 lucky ones to get a bib and doubt if I could have finished the race if I did, but I did ski a considerable portion of the track back in February. 

It was a vacation—a quaint idea that still exists in Europe—and I was prompted to think of what the future holds for the course just as the temperature crept past the upper range of my “universal” silver  ski wax and I started sliding backward down the hills. By the time I was heading home, things were pushing the 12-degree C top range of the KR70 Aqua klister ski wax. (Any warmer than that and you’re not skiing, your waterskiing.)

Sounds good she said, Swedes are rich, they can afford the snow, but wait, I hear that Canada is the place to go.  Well, maybe Eli said, it's so warm there these winters (places in Eastern Canada may demur) that they took the outdoor skating rink off the fiver.  Future Canadians will say of the long winters that they lived in the school, the church and the indoor rink.  Outdoor rinks are disappearing earlier and earlier and in some cases never appearing.  Where will you skate young Wayne Gretsky is the question on all frozen lips? But the backyard rink ain't one of the places given current trends unless granddad is some sort of mining investor with big pockets for the cooler and a blog.

Simon Donner knows, and he is not happy.

in an understated Canadian sort of way.  Andy Skuce on Skeptical Science has a more complete discussion with a link to a Globe and Mail article on bill redesign with leaked documents.  In the discussion is a statement from the design consultants that anything with snow would be risky because global warming.  So they got the robot arm on the space station.

Well, Ms. Rabett said, there is always Alaska.  Bad news Eli said, Alaska is so warm that the Iditerod has to move considerably north to find enough snow and you can practically go out in shorts most populated places this January (Rabetts are tough beasts but maybe not that tough).

We could go to California said the apple of Eli's eye.  Well, if you want to broil in LA with nothing to drink that would be a good place.

The South Sea, the Antipodes, Ms. Rabett offered.  Big cyclones downered Eli

Ms. Rabett played here last card?  Well where can we go, Antarctica?  Stay away from the coast said Eli