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Current Events from a Science Perspective

The 2013 Environmental Hall of Fame/Shame contest was carried out on three websites and the votes were combined to determine those who have most affected the environment through word or action.

The 2013 Environmental Hall of Fame Winners:

Thanks  to those of you who entered your nominations. The four top nominees for each award have been selected from those nominated by readers. Please help select the winner by voting  for the nominee who you think has most affected the environment for good or ill.  If you wish, please post a reason for your vote and a suggestion for other suitable gifts for your favorite candidate. Some great gifts have already been proposed. The author will buy the gifts from his copious blogging earnings, so please don’t worry about the expense.

Please take the poll HERE or put your choice as a comment.

Hall of Shame Nominees:

The Executive Producers and Hosts of the five Sunday Morning talk shows: They have done a terrible job of covering climate change. Their coverage of the topic dropped from an inadequate 61 minutes in 2009 to a four-year low of 8 minutes in 2012. They are:

 

• NBC – Meet The Press – Rob Yarin, Executive Producer, David Gregory, Host
• CBS – Face The Nation – Mary Hager, Executive Producer, Bob Schieffer, Host
• ABC – This Week- Jonathon Greenberger, Producer, George Stephanopolus, Host
• FOX – News Sunday – Jay Wallace, Executive Producer, Chris Wallace, Host
• CNN – State of the Union – Rick DiBella, Producer, Candy Crowley, Host

Their award should be the booklet recently published jointly by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society “Climate Change – Evidence and Causes.”

 James Delingpole: He is not a scientist, yet he wrote columns for the Telegraph denying climate change and personally attacking climate scientists, comparing them to Nuremberg criminals and suggesting they be tortured.  Thinkprogress suggests that the Telegraph should retract and apologize for Delingpole’s articles as they violate their policies against “obscene, threatening, menacing, offensive, defamatory, and  abusive” material.  Award??
The Koch Bothers: They own almost 2 million acres of Alberta tar sands land where the Keystone XL pipeline originates. If approved, much of the tar sands products will be shipped to other countries after refining, but it will put the central United States at risk for oil spills and leave environmentally hazardous residue behind after refining. The Kochs,  one of the largest funders of AGW denier groups, have been using their extensive wealth to lobby politicians to let the KXL pipeline go through.

Award??

The George C. Marshall Institute:  They espouse “Science for a Better Public Policy” but they specialize in churning out misinformation about Climate Change.  Realizing they could not dispute the scientific evidence, they developed the strategy of “Doubt Is Our Product”, i.e. creating doubt about the scientific evidence and the scientific consensus to keep effective action from being taken.  Their Award should be a copy of Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes, who exposed their strategy.

Hall of Fame Nominees:

Bill McKibben: He is the founder of 350.org , an international grassroots organization whose goal is to raise awareness about anthropogenic climate change, to confront climate change denial, and to cut CO2 levels to 350 ppm in order to minimize the damage from global warming. His weekly newsletter keeps followers updated on the latest research and issues in climate science.

His Award should be many new members, so please check out his newsletter.
Kevin Cowtan and Robert G. Way: They found  the ‘missing heat’ in the climate system, casting doubt on suggestions that global warming has slowed or stopped over the past decade. Observational data on which climate records are based cover only 84 per cent of the planet – with Polar regions largely excluded. They reconstructed the ‘missing’ global temperatures using a combination of observations from satellites and surface data from weather stations and ships on the peripheries of the unsampled regions.  Their research published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society shows that the Arctic is warming at about eight times the pace of the rest of the planet.

Their Award should be the acclaim of having a link to their paper attached to every article which says: “Global warming has stopped”.

The Candu Engineers: They designed the Candu nuclear reactor to run on thorium. The reactors are very fuel efficient and have been adapted to use thorium in existing reactors that already have regulatory approval. http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/2…

Their Award should be regulatory approval of new designs for thorium reactors.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: He a strong advocate in the Senate for legislation to reduce our carbon emissions.  He addressed claims made by fellow Senator Jim Inhofe; “The bottom line is when Senator Inhofe says global warming is a hoax, he is just dead wrong”, adding “research shows the climate is changing in response to man’s activities. 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, and weather-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more costly “.

His Award should be more support from fellow Senators for action on climate change.

Nominations were taken from three sites, and the poll set up HERE.  Please vote for your choice for each award. The poll will close on April 30, 2014.

You may also post your choices as comments.

(c)2014  J.C. Moore