J.C. Moore Online

Current events from a science perspective.

The world needs a reliable supply of energy. To ensure that, many countries have granted subsidies and tax breaks to fossil fuel companies to help develop energy resources. However, with the concern over our carbon emissions and over the economic crises that many countries are facing, the wisdom of continuing those subsidies needs to be examined. The fossil fuel companies are now quite profitable. As the chart below shows, two of the five most profitable companies in the U.S. are oil companies with Exxon Mobil greatly exceeding the profitability of the other four.

 It is understandable that some countries may still need to subsidize fossil fuel companies, but fossil fuel companies receive about six times as much in subsidies as sustainable energy sources. The International Energy Agency reports that subsidies to oil companies in developing countries could reach as much as $630 billion in 2012, with those in developed countries adding about $58 billion.  Below is a breakdown of the subsidies in developed countries along with their commitment to Fast Start Financing, which supports immediate action by developing countries to strengthen their
resilience to climate change and mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions, including those from deforestation.

The United States’ yearly subsidies to the fossil fuel industries amounts to about $13.6 billion. As Washington struggles to balance the U.S. budget, that is certainly one of the cuts that should be considered. The Institute for Policy Integrity lists the number of laws giving tax breaks to energy companies. It lists 38 for the fossil fuel industries, 25 for all the renewable energy sources together , and one break for nuclear power. While it is the national interest to subsidize the development of sustainable energy resources, a much larger share of tax breaks go to well established and profitable fossil fuel companies. But that’s not the whole story.

Some of the tax breaks and subsidies meant to promote the development of renewable energy sources end up with the fossil fuel companies. For example, the Georgia Pacific paper company, a subsidiary of Koch oil, mixes  a byproduct of paper production, called black liquor, with diesel to make a product they claim as a biofuel. This fuel cannot be used in transportation, and can only be burned as fuel in their plants. However, Koch has managed to qualify the black liquor mixture to take advantage of the biomass fuel assistance program and has received $5 billion in subsidies for the process. Though Koch is on the record as being against green energy, funds meant for green energy projects are subsidizing the fuel for Koch’s paper mills.  Congress tried to close this loophole, but the effort was ultimately defeated.

The fossil fuel companies have become so large and so adept at lobbying, that they often distort U.S. policies for their own benefit. For instance, Exxon pays a lower tax rate than the average American. Between 2008-2010, Exxon Mobil registered an average 17.6 percent federal effective corporate tax rate, while the average American paid a higher rate of 20.4 percent. In spite of that, the company complains about its high taxation and is currently running ads against the Obama administration’s efforts to cut $36 billion in tax loopholes and subsidies to help balance the budget. Large oil companies are now multinational companies which have little allegiance to the United States. According to a Mother Jones article, “Exxon has 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. Of the $15 billion in income taxes it paid in 2009, Exxon paid none of it to the United States, and it has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.” We should ask why our government is providing subsidies and tax breaks to companies that have little legitimate need for them and apparently little allegiance to the United States.

(c) 2013 J.C. Moore

Every major scientific society in the world has adopted a statement like that of the American Chemical Society which says,

” Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s  climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing  aerosol particles. There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.”

This urgent message continues to be mainly ignored by the public and our politicians. This seems strange as scientist’s trustworthiness is  highly rated by the public, with 84% having a favorable view of scientists. A recent CNN  poll  found that 97% of scientists who are actively engaged in research in climate science agree that global warming is occurring and the primary cause is man’s activities. The strongest consensus comes from the scientists who publish articles on climate science.  A recent peer-reviewed article   in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that 97-98% of the scientists agree with the consensus opinion with the strongest agreement coming from those who publish the most in the climate science area. A number of surveys have been taken of different group of scientists with the results shown below:

There is clearly a  consensus among scientists on global warming,  but the public’s opinion  continues to be divided about what scientists think. On the question of whether scientists agree that the earth is warming mostly because of human activity; 45% say scientists agree while 43% say they do not. That is because the 3% of the climate scientists who do not agree with the scientific consensus  receive an inordinately large amount of publicity.  Efforts to  discredit the climate scientist’s consensus usually involve quoting scientists who doubt the opinion of the 97%, then  claiming that destroys the whole consensus. However, those  scientists likely started out in the 3% who doubted the consensus to begin with.

Disagreements in science are usually settled by the evidence. To see what the consensus actually is, you just have to look at the peer-reviewed literature.  James Powell examined the scientific consensus in terms of the number of published articles either agreeing or disagreeing with the consensus. His search of peer-reviewed scientific articles published between January, 1991 and November, 2012 with the keywords ”global warming” or “global climate change” produced 13,950 articles. He classified as “rejecting” articles that clearly and explicitly stated that the theory of global warming is false or that some other process better explains the observed warming. Only 24 articles,or 0.17%, rejected the consensus, as represented by the thin red line on the pie chart below.

Of the 24  articles  that rejected the consensus opinion, several  were published by gaming the peer review system. An analysis by John Mashey showed fourteen articles rejecting the consensus opinion were published in Climate Research while Chris de Freitas,  a biased climate change Skeptic, was the editor. Most of the articles claiming the Earth is not warming or that man does not have a major role have been found to have errors or have  been disproven by later research.

(c) 2013 J.C. Moore

We all have different ideas about what is a fair tax policy and a fair distribution of wealth.  Below are some pictures and graphs  which  show that conventional wisdom may not give us a clear picture of the facts – and that we may need to reconsider what is actually fair.

State Taxes: Last year, Oklahoma cut  state taxes and is considering another tax cut. The graph below is the data for Oklahoma from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy .  It shows that those in the lowest income group pay the highest percentage  of their income in taxes.  The 2012 Oklahoma tax cuts skewed the distribution even more, as 75% of the tax cuts went to the top 20%  in income.  You may look  up the data for your state at the link above. The tax cuts in Oklahoma, and perhaps in your state, were justified by using Laffer’s economic theory, though the theory apparently fails in practice.

Distribution of Wealth:  The graph  below compares what people consider the ideal distribution of wealth, with how they think wealth is distributed. Both are very different from the actual distribution of wealth. Taxation and spending policies have greatly contributed to this distribution of wealth.

National Debt:  Taxation and spending policies greatly affect our national debt. The graph  below, from the CBO, shows how the surplus projected in 2001, the top red line, was decreased by the weakening economy, tax cuts, and spending decisions. The stimulus accounted for  6% of the decrease and Obama’s policies for 8%.

Tax Rates: This chart gives some historical perspective on the top marginal tax rates. Those in the top  income bracket     have been enjoying the lowest tax rates since World War II.

Spending:  The conventional wisdom is that our current deficit is because of  increasing government spending. That is not borne out by the data.

The Deficit: Though there have been many claims about our growing deficit,  the deficit has actually been shrinking as a share of the GDP.

Ancient Wisdom: Aristotle thought that nature, and even politics, could best be understood by observations and reason. In the fifth century BC, Aristotle compared the democracy in Athens with other forms of government and warned against a major flaw in democracy. If the poor gain too much power, they will vote too many benefits for themselves and will deplete the treasury.  If the rich gain too much power,  they will use that power to further enrich themselves, leaving too many of the citizen’s poor. Aristotle thought democracy was only a viable form of government if there was a strong middle class.

Economics is not the only issue in most elections, and many people vote for a candidate based on social issues, sometimes without considering that  the candidate may make decisions against their best economic interests. Perhaps it’s time we put divisive  social issues aside for awhile, and work on restoring the economic balance in our society. Our education system, our infrastructure, our health, and our economic well-being all depend heavily on our taxation and spending policies. Although economic imbalance may be becoming a threat to our democracy, that can be changed if we will become informed and

(C) 2013 J.C. Moore

The Climate Change Denial Machine is a multi-million-dollar machine designed to produce only one thing, doubt.

Every major scientific society in the world has adopted a statement like that of the American Chemical Society which says,” Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s  climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing  aerosol particles. There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.” A recent CNN poll found that 97% of scientists who are actively engaged in research in climate science agree that man’s activities are the main causes of global warming. In spite of the strong consensus among the scientists and the warning by all of our major science societies that urgent action is needed, little effective action has been taken.

Why hasn’t  action been taken?  The main cause of climate change is most certainly the 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide man is putting into the into the air each year by burning fossil fuels. If man is a major cause, then surely it should be possible for us to do something about it. But we haven’t. Perhaps it’s because the effects of climate change on the Earth have been subtle. Scientific research shows the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing, the temperature of the Earth is rising, the oceans are becoming more acidic, glaciers and polar ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising, the probability of severe weather events is increasing, food supplies are threatened, and weather-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more costly. But couldn’t those things be from natural causes? Couldn’t the scientists be wrong? Couldn’t it be too costly?

If your is answer “yes” to the above  or similar questions, then you probably have been influenced by propaganda created by the Climate Change Denial Machine. The Climate Change Denial Machine was patterned after the Tobacco Propaganda Machine and uses many of the same organizations and tactics. Almost  50 years after the Surgeon General announced that smoking had serious health consequences leading to premature death, many people still smoke, showing the effectiveness of the propaganda. The  Climate Change Denial Machine is much better funded,  supports a far greater number of science Skeptics and politicians, and has the Internet to widely disseminate its propaganda. While smoking only affected the smoker and those around them, climate change, if  left unaddressed,  will have serious consequences for everyone and everything on the Earth.

The workings of the  Climate Change Denial Machine have been explained in an article written by  Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright, and their excellent diagram is shown below. It was published in Chapter 10 in the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, edited by John S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, David Schlosberg. It shows how money and misinformation flows from climate Skeptics and fossil fuel companies and is disseminated to the public. There is a link below the diagram to Chapter 10 of the Handbook if you would like to read the article .

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JihhbdpO-yoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA144&dq=climate+change+denial+machine&ots=mTeB9kSYdb&sig=ZpvCpYYmeWhb9HIIPDEOkmcy_o8#v=onepage&q=climate%20change%20denial%20machine&f=false

 During the 112th Congress, fossil fuel companies donated over $32 million to our  Congressional representatives. You may  find out if your Senator or Congressman was the beneficiary of their gnerosity at this website which tracks the flow of the money.

(c) 2013 J.C. Moore

The title has an “X”, as the number of years varies from 10 to 16 depending on who said it and when. I first heard this myth from George Will when he was attacking John McCain’s stand on global warming during the 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Will claimed that the Earth’s temperature had not gone up in the last 10 years. When I contacted him for an explanation, he said that it was because 1998 was hotter than any year after that. Strangely, Mr. Will referred to the data from the World Meteorological Organization rather than that from NASA. Mr. Will has no use for the UN, but his statement could only be true if he used the UN data which showed that 2005 was slightly cooler than 1998. NASA’s data shows that 2005 was slightly warmer than 1998, and also that 2007 and 2010 were warmer yet. It’s a little hard to explain how the Earth reached those higher temperatures without  going up, but logic and truth are mostly irrelevant to those who say this.

As the years have gone by, “X” has been increased accordingly and the erroneous statement has been repeated on Skeptic’s blogs, newspaper articles, letters to the editor, op-ed pieces, sites like Yahoo!Answers, and by politicians such as Sen. Inhofe. The number “X” is now up to 16 and when I put “no global warming in past 16 years” in Google’s search engine, I got 114 million hits. It’s a great propaganda piece as it is simple, easily understood, and reduces people’s worry about climate change. Unfortunately, it is very comforting, and very, very wrong. The propaganda has been funded, circulated, and promoted by those who do not want us to address global warming as they have an economic interest in the issue.

So what is the truth of the matter? There are number of natural and man-made factors that affect the temperature of the Earth. The main factors are the amount of solar radiation we receive, volcanic activity, greenhouse gases, and ocean circulations such as El Niño and La Niña. Man’s main contribution falls in the area of greenhouse gases. We are now emitting 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has gone up about 40% in the last century. That increase and the ensuing feedback loops are the main factors that can be attributed to man. Though there are other contributions, most of the CO2 increase has come from burning fossil fuels.

Probably the best way to see man’s influence on the Earth’s temperature is to subtract out the factors that can be attributed to natural sources and to see what is left. That was done very nicely by climate scientist Kevin C. in a video which he produced and posted on YouTube. It’s only 2 minutes long, but it shows how the Earth’s temperature has responded to the increasing burden of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Earth’s Temperature: Certainly, the average temperature of the Earth has varied greatly over the last million years, from about 2°C (36°F) during the ice ages to about 15°C (59°F) during the warmer interglacial periods. We are now in an interglacial periodic and the Earth’s average temperature for the last century averages 13.9°C (57°F). Much of the research on the Earth’s temperature has been an attempt to understand the coming and going of the ice ages. We now know that the Earth’s temperature is correlated with the Milankovitch cycles , which affect how much sunlight the Earth receives, but that is not the whole story. That greenhouse gases play a role in warming the Earth was shown by Joseph Fourier in the 1820s. Using the differential equations he developed for heat transfer, Fourier calculated that the Earth, considering its size and its distance from the Sun, should be considerably colder than it actually is. He proposed the Earth must be kept warmer by its atmosphere, which acts much as the glass in a greenhouse. The actual amount of warming that could be attributed to the greenhouse effect was later found from the Stephen Boltzmann law, developed in the early 1900s. If the Earth had no atmosphere, its average temperature would be 33°C  lower, at -19.0°C (-2.2°F). Without greenhouse gases, the Earth would be a frozen block of ice.

Greenhouse Gases: Heat energy leaves the Earth as infrared radiation, which makes up a part of the spectrum that is absorbed by many molecules as they vibrate. As infrared radiation leaves the Earth, it is absorbed then reemitted in all directions, some of it going back toward the Earth where it further warms the Earth. In the 1850′s, John Tyndall’s infrared research found that nitrogen and oxygen, the major components of the atmosphere, do not absorb infrared radiation. He discovered that the molecules responsible for the greenhouse effect were water vapor and carbon dioxide. Water varies from a trace up to about 4% depending on the humidity; carbon dioxide’s concentration was about 0.0028% in Tyndall’s time. In spite of their low concentration, CO2 and H2O both absorb strongly in the infrared region of the spectrum. Also, radiation leaving the Earth must traverse several kilometers of atmosphere, greatly increasing the probability of the radiation being absorbed and readmitted. Carbon dioxide plays a large role for its concentration, as it absorbs strongly in regions of the infrared spectrum where water does not.

Recent research by Kiehl and Tenebreth on the Earth’s energy budget identified five naturally occurring gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. The gases, along with their contribution in both clear sky and cloudy conditions, are listed in the table.The infrared spectra of the major greenhouse gases can be found at http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/Warming/pdf/greenIR.pdf .

Each of the greenhouse gases has several absorption bands, and there are some regions of the spectrum where the bands overlap, as noted in the table. Once clouds form, the liquid droplets absorbed broadly across most of the infrared region, so cloud formation reduces the contributions of the other gases. Overall, clouds and H2O account for about 75% of the greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases for about 25%. Some of the coldest nights on Earth are when the humidity is low and the night is still and clear, as the contribution of H20 is reduced far below the 60% given in the table.

The average residence time of a water molecule in the atmosphere is only about nine days. Because precipitation removes water from the air in such a short time, the concentration of water in the air varies from a trace in cold arid region up to about 4% in warm humid regions. The average residence time in the atmosphere of CH₄ is 12 years, while the residence times of NO2 and CO₂ are more than a century. Gases with long half-lives reside in the atmosphere long enough to become evenly distributed throughout the atmosphere.  Ozone (O₃), which has a residence time of a few months, is constantly beingformed in the atmosphere from photochemical processes, many of which are initiated by methane and hydrocarbons.

The Limit of Humidity:  The pressure of the atmosphere is made up of contributions from all the molecules in the atmosphere and the share that each gas contributes is called its partial pressure. The amount of water in the air can be measured by its partial  pressure. There is a limit on the amount of water the air can hold as the humidity becomes 100% when the partial pressure equals the saturated vapor pressure, and the air can hold no more water.

The Saturated Vapor Pressure of Water

The saturated vapor pressure depends only on the temperature and is listed in the table at the right.That limit of water in an air mass can be reached by water evaporating from the surface until the partial pressure reaches the saturated vapor pressure given in the table. Alternatively, the limit can be reached when a mass of air is cooled until its saturated vapor pressure is lowered to the air’s partial pressure. Any further decrease in temperature will cause air to be oversaturated and cloud formation and precipitation is likely to occur. For example, at the equator, where the temperature averages 26°, water will evaporate until it reaches the  saturated vapor pressure of 25.2 mmHg. However, over the Arctic Ocean where the temperature averages 1°C, the air is saturated at 4.9 mmHg. Not surprisingly, the air can hold almost 5.1 times as much water at the equator. Or, on a clear night, when the temperature drops until the saturated vapor pressure is less than the air’s partial pressure, dew will form. The weatherman usually reports the temperature when that will happen as the “dew point”.

 CO2 Controls the Temperature: One of the great mysteries confronting science in the 1800′s was the cause of the ice ages. The role that greenhouse gases had in keeping the Earth warm provided a clue for Arrhenius, who thought that changes in their concentration might be the cause of the coming and going of the ice ages. He set out to find the climate sensitivity, the temperature change expected if the concentration is doubled, for the individual greenhouse gases. Arrhenius understood that the concentration of water vapor in the air was limited by its saturated vapor pressure, which is dependent on the temperature. How then, could an increase in H2O increase the temperature when it was itself limited by the temperature? Carbon dioxide has no such limitation, so Arrhenius turned his attention to finding the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide. Though Arrhenius’s model was simple and the calculations were laborious, he found that doubling the carbon concentration would increase the temperature of the earth by about 5°C. However, the increase in temperature would allow a greater concentration of water vapor in the air which would amplify the warming. Thus, the concentration of CO2 acts as a regulator of water vapor, and ultimately determines the planet’s long-term equilibrium temperature. Recent work using better data and models have found that the climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide is in the range of 3 to 4°C, and carbon dioxide has been proposed as the “control knob” for the Earth’s temperature. Still, water vapor and clouds contribute the most to greenhouse warming, and their contribution is considered to be a positive feedback to the increasing carbon dioxide concentration.

No one in Arrhenius’s day could imagine how the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide concentration could possibly double, and some of Arrhenius’ contemporaries proposed setting some poor quality coal seams on fire to ward off another Ice Age. That proved not to be unnecessary as in 1900 Arvid Hgbom, a volcanologist, calculated that industrial sources were adding CO2 to the atmosphere at roughly the same rate as volcanoes. No one thought much of it as, at that rate, it would take centuries for the amount of CO2 to increase significantly. However, no one imagined that we would burn fossil fuels at today’s rate, putting 30 billion tons of CO2 into the air each year. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has increased by 40% since Arrhenius’s day, and the temperature of the Earth has increased by about 0.85°C, well in line with Arrhenius’s predictions.

Alternate Theories: There are a number of alternate theories as to why the Earth is warming, and most of the recent ones center around water and clouds, as that is still an active area of research. The most easily dismissed one is that water vapor is responsible for global warming rather than carbon dioxide. Arrhenius showed that was false over 100 years ago, yet some Skeptics are still saying it. Another theory, credited to Svensmark, is that cosmic rays from the stars produce charged particles that promote cloud formation. There is little evidence that the cosmic rays reaching Earth have increased and there are plenty of particulates in the air to seed clouds besides the charged particles.  Another theory is Iris Effect which has been promoted by Richard Lindzen, mostly in op-ed pieces that are not peer-reviewed. His theory is that the earth’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases is low as the increasing  surface temperature at the equator will cause the rising columns of moist air to  rain out more moisture, leaving less to form high ice clouds, known to be a positive forcing. Aside from the fact that it seemed a little unreasonable to claim that more moisture in the air will lead to fewer high clouds, other climate scientists have found significant errors in Lindzen’s published works.

 A recent paper in Remote Sensing by Roy Spencer attributes global warming to cloud formation and it was claimed to “blow a gaping hole in global warming theory.” Its main theory was that clouds were driving global warming, rather than being a feedback mechanism. The paper was quickly refuted by climate scientists by pointing out that Spencer’s model of the Earth’s atmosphere was terribly inadequate. There is also evidence that Spencer’s paper gained publication by gaming the peer review system. Another theory comes from Roger Pielke Jr., who claims that hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming less frequent and destructive, based on an economic analysis of storm damage. Global warming is likely to increase the probability of severe storms, so his work has been used to discount global warming. However, his theories stand in sharp contrast to the number of events and the amounts paid out in storm damage  by Munich Re (the fourth and fifth graphs) , a large secondary insurance company, that analyzed the issue without the benefit of some of Pielke’s assumptions.

The final theory, which would be laughable if it weren’t repeated by many Skeptics to discredit climate science, is that climate scientists have created the CO2 global warming theory purely for their own economic benefit. The greenhouse gas theory was developed, and the main points understood by the end of the 19th century, long before any of today’s climate scientists were even born. Fourier, Tyndall, and Arrhenius established that H2O and CO2 were main factors in warming the earth, with changes in CO2 concentrations being the primary driving force and H2O being a feedback to changes in the CO2 levels. Research since then has confirmed their findings, and their theories have been borne out by the global warming we have experienced since their day. It is hard to believe that any credible scientist would reject such well-established theories.

Note: Much of the historical data in this article came from http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

(C) 2013 J.C. Moore

This is a guest post written  and filmed by Barbara Moore.

When I come back in another life, I want to come back as a Hummingbird. Well, that’s if I did believe that was possible. I mean, what could be better than to look like a beautiful petite fairy and sip sugar all day at feeders or beautiful flowers! Not to mention zipping around in elusive bird flight.  Anyway, I have had a fascination with Hummingbirds since seeing my very first one.

With that fascination, I have become a faithful feeder and watcher, never tiring of their fascinating behavior. Watching has naturally led to photography and I have many hummingbird photos and am always trying for one more. I have never been able to get a picture of one of the most interesting things I have observed.  Sometimes a hummingbird will fly in a downward arc,  then turn  and repeat the arc in the other direction and continue doing that  for a dozen or more times in the same path, as if  they were pendulum on a string.   Experts are divided on why they do that, but since it’s only the males and in the Spring, it is likely either a territorial or a mating behavior.

Shortly after we moved to our new house which backs up to a wooded area, I hung out my hummingbird feeder. After a few weeks I started to experience an odd phenomenon; every morning the hummingbird feeder was totally empty even though I had just filled it. As I wasn’t seeing more than a few hummingbird during the day, I decided to investigate. One morning I happened to get up before sunup and just happened to look out the window. Ah ha! I found my thief. There was a good sized raccoon sitting on the deck rail where he could stand on his back legs, reach the hummingbird feeder and guzzle to his heart’s content. I tried to get a picture of that but there just wasn’t enough light and as soon as I opened the door he took off like a rocket!  I have also caught squirrels hanging upside down and out from the tree, as this one, sipping from the feeders. Needless to say I came up with a way to hang my feeders away from rails and branches.

This Fall we had an exciting hummingbird event; about 15 hummingbirds came to our feeder all at the same time. We have lived at the same location for five years and never had this happen. It was kind of strange as we have had maybe one male who occasionally would allow a female a brief visit to the feeder all summer long. Then this happened all in one day.  For next  several days  there  were many hummingbirds  that came to the feeder, but not 15 all at one once. It was very exciting to be out on the deck with them as they were much less skittish. The sound is pretty amazing too.

This is a video of my best ever hummingbird experience. Hummingbirds must have been what inspired the idea of “fairies”.    The video is about four minutes long but if you watch it all you will see some very interesting behavior, especially at  about 1:40. The male usually tries to drive the others away but there were too many. And, turn up the sound a little and you will be able to hear them:

Amazing Hummingbirds

Earthrise over the Moon from Apollo 11.

It is important that we keep in mind those who are heroes and villains  in our efforts to protect the environment. Each year, this site takes a poll to find those most deserving of recognition in the Environmental Hall of Fame and the Environmental Hall of Shame. Nominations are now open for those  awards to those who have most affected the environment by words or action. With the ongoing  debate about  global warming and environmental regulations,  nominees should be easy to find.  Please send  at least one nomination  for  each category by e-mail through the “Contact” link or put it in the comment section . If you would, please include a short reason that your nominee should be chosen and suggest a suitable gift if they win.

The 2011 Environmental Hall of Fame Winners  was James Hansen for  playing a pivotal role in delaying a decision on the XL pipeline  whose construction  would greatly accelerate global warming. The 2011 Hall of Shame award went to Halliburton (Cheney),  for the Halliburton clause in the Clean Water Act. This clause provided a loophole that allows the composition of fracking chemicals to remain secret, thanks to Cheney. Past years winners and their gifts were:

Hall of Fame    -    Gift                                             

2010        RealClimate.org  - A recommendation from this site. ( Priceless)

2009        Benno Hansen,  ThinkAboutIt Blogger - A Subscription to Science News.

Hall of Shame    

2010         Koch Brothers - A petition to the Wizard of Oz for  the grant of a social conscience.

2009         SpaceGuy,  Newsvine Blogger - The movie Wall-E,  representing his view of the future of Earth.

(C) 2012  J.C. Moore

“The authorities in New York are discovering what Egypt also learned — that it’s not as easy to regulate or arrest journalists when everyone is a journalist. But while that may make our lives a little more complicated, it is fundamentally a good thing for society,” writes Mathew Ingram in his post ‘What happens when journalism is everywhere.’

 I think Mathew uses the word ‘Journalism’ only because there is no other suitable description for world citizenry finding a voice and articulating independent views about the environment from a strong personal perception. This is one important node where social media branches off from the mainstream media, which in today’s world is a corporate institution. The Arab spring reporters reported with mobile phones, with no formal journalistic training and without financial incentive.

But this citizen reporting, whether or not you credit it with journalistic neutrality has come to be reckoned with a credibility that is almost undisputed now. This is deeply linked with a wave of neo-democratization that mainstream media is riding instead of refuting. For example, we see media offshoots like BBC’s User-Generated Content Hub, Reuter’s partnership with blogging network Global Voices, and sites like PJ Media .

In the sea of blogs that piece through world events with views ranging from practical to outrageous, there are few that are slowly but steadily debunking the myths of power and politics in determining our world views. J.C.Moore’s story is one such silent reconstruction.

J.C. Moore is a native Oklahoman who earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Kansas State University. A retired professor of chemistry and physics, he is a member of the American Geophysical Union and Republicans for Environmental Protection. Dr. J.C. Moore is also a blogger who yielded key-board when people of his age and position would prefer spending time playing golf and not asking uneasy questions. He comes from the state whose legislature resolved to condemn invitation of Richard Dawkins by the University of Oklahoma because professor Dawkins is known for his stand against biblical genesis being taught as an alternative creation theory besides Darwinian Evolutionary theory in the state. J.C Moore also represents the same state that flaunts the Global Warming denier Senator James Inhofe – who recently proposed a law that would forbid funding for climate research.

Interested readers may find it worthwhile to check Dr. Moore’s blog JC Moore Online – a body of work that bespeaks of passion and rationality of appropriate mix. It’s not because I have been following his work for long now and come to respect his sincere efforts to engage Climate Change deniers with science and evidence, but because of his strength of conviction I find this man inspiring.

And such silent work should not go unnoticed for mostly the people for whom he is primarily concerned. Happily enough the review by Moore of Inhofe’s book ‘The Greatest Hoax’, a shorter version of which was also published in the Tulsa World recently became part of Senate debate between Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. James Inhofe, where Sen. Sanders quoted Moore’s lines to refute Sen. Inhofe’s views and policies. Here is the C-SPAN clip of Sen. Bernie Sander’s speaking.

This is citizen media at its best. It is inspiring to see my Think blogger colleague achieving something, which, considering his location and position corporate media will give a hand and a foot to do. And for J.C. Moore it neither takes fancy TV Channels nor high selling media campaign.

I missed the good fortune of interviewing Dr. J.C. Moore in person as we are half a world apart, but this is what he has to say about the above episode.

I wonder about what happens when there is one J.C.Moore in every society.

(c) 2012 Pabitraspeaks

 An article has recently been circulating around the Skeptics’ websites called  “ Four recent scientific blows to the global warming theory”. They are hardly blows and they certainly cannot be called scientific, as they contradict scientific research. They do make you wonder where Skeptics get their misinformation. Lucy spilled the beans on that in one of the Peanut’s cartoons.

 Lucy: Charlie Brown, do you want to hear some little known facts of science?

 Charlie Brown, looking puzzled: Wait a minute, if they are so little known, how do you  know them?     

  Lucy: Because I’m the one who made them up.

Being a good scientist, Charlie Brown has a healthy skepticism toward Skeptics. And, no matter who made them up, he has found a little skepticism of the Skeptics is a good idea.

The Article starts: “The science behind the anthropogenic global warming theory appears to be falling apart with each new scientific study.”  ”In fact, since the Climategate scandal broke, where top climate scientists were caught manipulating data to fit the theory, polls have shown the number of global warming believers has plummeted to new lows.”

Charlie Brown:  It’s strange that there are no references to those “new scientific studies”. Op ed pieces by skeptics, maybe, but no recent scientific studies or polls say that . Also, isn’t it time to give up on Climategate? Nine independent investigations into Climategate have found no scientific misconduct?

Article: It goes on, “Czech President Vaclav Klaus, an economist who lived through the rise and fall of communism, recently said that the climate change movement is a threat to democracy.” “I consider (the global warming doctrine) a new dangerous attempt to control and mastermind my life and our lives, in the name of controlling the climate or temperature.” And environmentalists “ don’t care about resources or poverty or pollution. They hate us, the humans. They consider us dangerous and sinful creatures who must be controlled by them.”

Charlie Brown: Wow! Dangerous and sinful? Few Skeptic’s articles are complete without quoting an obscure figure with bizarre views. Environmentalists do not want to control the climate or temperature; they would just like to keep it at a level comfortable for human civilization. And, aren’t they also “humans”?

Article: Blow 1., finally. ”A biologist who claimed that polar bears were drowning because of melting ice has been suspended and is being investigated for scientific misconduct following his “veracity” in emotionalizing a debunked topic.  Get ready for Polarbeargate. “

Charlie Brown:  Polarbeargate? The Polar bear has become a symbol of all we may lose by failing to address our carbon emissions problem adequately. Skeptics can’t disprove the theory so they  to attack the symbol.  The scientist’s account of the polar bears drowning was a credible account of what he observed. The extent of the Arctic sea ice has declined about 30% since 1980. Polar bears now have to swim many miles to reach the sea ice to hunt. Those who don’t want to swim that far rummage around in the garbage dumps, leading Skeptics to believe that the bears are now more numerous.

 Dr. Monnett, a biologist studying Polar bear populations, counted four bears who had drowned trying to swim to the receding sea ice to hunt. Though that happened five years ago, the Interior Department was just recently put under pressure to investigate the matter by  Sen. James Inhofe who was unhappy that the bears were put on the threatened species list.   That was done, not because of Dr. Monnett’s work, but because the bear’s habitat is declining. As their habitat disappears, so will the Polar bear. There just aren’t enough garbage dumps to feed them all.

Article: Blow 2. “Today, new NASA data blows a gaping hole in global warming alarmism: NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.”(sic?)

Charlie Brown: This is about an article by Roy Spencer, “On the Misdiagnosis Of Surface Temperature Feedbacks From Variations In Earth’s Radiant Energy Balance“, which claimed that climate scientists have the role of clouds wrong . It did not have enough scientific evidence to blow a hole in anything, but the article had a remarkable ability to “ shapeshift” as it sped around. It went from a paper published in a little-known journal where was not likely to be reviewed by climate scientists, to Roger Pielke’s website, where it was given a Skeptic’s A-OK. Then it went to the Heartland Institute, where senior fellow James Taylor fixed it up a little, classified it as a news article, renamed it “New NASA data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism” and sent it on to Forbes. Apparently Forbes did not realize that describing scientists as “alarmist” 15 times was suspicious, perhaps because James Taylor is also on staff at Forbes as, get this, a “contributor on energy and environment issues”. From there it went on to Yahoo! News, most other major media sources, and dozens of Skeptics blog sites.

It was amazing that it became so distorted and widely circulated just three days after publication, before legitimate climate scientists had a chance to respond. When they did, they had some rather unkind things to say about the research. Trenberth and Fasullo soon summed it up: ”The model has no realistic ocean, no El Niño, and no hydrological cycle, and it was tuned to give the result it gave.The bottom line is that this paper has NO scientific merit” Later, A.E. Dessler analyzed Spencer’s paper in detail and published a rebuttal destroying Spencer’s arguments. The editor of Remote Sensing was so ashamed of the bad publicity that he resigned, saying” the paper should never have been published”.

Article: Blow 3. ”The CERN physicists conducted a cosmic ray climate experiment that is said to directly contradict the climate change debate in the political arena.  Apparently, so much so that the scientists have been gagged from discussing their findings reportedly proving that cosmic (space-based) energy has a far greater effect on the climate than previously believed.”

Charlie Brown: Who said that? A book by perennial Skeptic Nigel Calder and Henrik Svensmark, The Chilling Stars,  claimed  the number of cosmic rays from the stars that strike the Earth is increasing. And, lead to more clouds since cosmic rays produce charged particles in the atmosphere that seed clouds. It’s an interesting theory, but the  data does not show that cosmic rays are actually increasing cloud cover. Also, there are plenty of particulates in the air to seed clouds and any effect from cosmic rays would be small in comparison.  ( See Blow 4., below.)

 The CERN scientists were not “gagged”, but they were asked not to report the results to the media before the formal paper was published. Perhaps they wish to avoid the type of outrageous publicity experienced by Spencer’s article.  Climate scientists are interested in the role that charged particles play so the scientists At CERN agreed to investigate the effect of cosmic rays on nitrate and sulfate aerosols.  After the experiment, the CERN cloud chamber was found to contain contaminates, so the experiment could not have proved or disproved anything. Except perhaps, considering Spencer’s paper, that climate Skeptics really don’t know clouds at all.

 Article: Blow 4. “A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found evidence that coal burning plants may actually be cooling the planet. The findings have been accepted to the point of suggesting using sulfur to combat global warming; ‘Sulfur’s ability to cool things down has led some to suggest using it in a geo-engineering feat to cool the planet.’  If anything, this study proves that the science behind the anthropogenic global warming theory is unproven.”

Charlie Brown:  The particulates from power plants cause cooling, as well as cancer and lung diseases. Particles soon settle out of the airwhile the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere keeps building up, warming the Earth much more than the cooling by the particles. We are now emitting 135 times as much CO2 as all the world’s volcanoes, but only about 7 times the particulates. The effect of particulates from volcanoes on the Earth’s temperature is well understood, so it is hard to see how this shows the “theory is unproven”.

The article concludes by noting that “the stakes are incredibly high” and then wanders off into some conspiracy theory. However, the stakes are high, and if we are not more skeptical of  the  Skeptics’ “little-known facts of science”, we are likely to find out just how high they are. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Earth stayed about the same for children in the future?

(c) 2012 J.C. Moore