Tag Archives: arctic

Trump reversed a plastic water bottle ban in national parks.

by JocelynCamp63 Posted on August 22, 2017

The fossil fuel industry has largely applauded the administration’s assault on environmental policy, like green-lighting controversial pipelines. Oh, and don’t forget that Trump “canceled” the Paris Climate Agreement.

Now, Politico Pro reports that some industry insiders say the Trump administration’s hasty environmental rule–scrapping has gone too far — and they’re getting worried about what might happen if disaster strikes.

“Every industry wants regulations that make sense,” Brian Youngberg, an energy analyst, told Politico. Trashing too many rules could lead to an environmental catastrophe, and might prompt even stricter regulations down the road.

Imagine a major disaster occurred — say, one akin to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. People might not look kindly upon President Trump’s executive order in April that reversed Obama-era restrictions on offshore drilling. Trump’s move abolished key safety improvements and opened up environmentally sensitive areas in the Gulf, the Arctic, and the Atlantic Ocean to potential oil drilling.

If a disaster were to happen, an anonymous source at an oil and gas company told Politico, “[W]e’d be painted with it as an entire industry.”

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Trump reversed a plastic water bottle ban in national parks.

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Psst, Zinke — national monuments create jobs just the way they are!

by Fbvisitsmy Posted on August 22, 2017

The fossil fuel industry has largely applauded the administration’s assault on environmental policy, like green-lighting controversial pipelines. Oh, and don’t forget that Trump “canceled” the Paris Climate Agreement.

Now, Politico Pro reports that some industry insiders say the Trump administration’s hasty environmental rule–scrapping has gone too far — and they’re getting worried about what might happen if disaster strikes.

“Every industry wants regulations that make sense,” Brian Youngberg, an energy analyst, told Politico. Trashing too many rules could lead to an environmental catastrophe, and might prompt even stricter regulations down the road.

Imagine a major disaster occurred — say, one akin to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. People might not look kindly upon President Trump’s executive order in April that reversed Obama-era restrictions on offshore drilling. Trump’s move abolished key safety improvements and opened up environmentally sensitive areas in the Gulf, the Arctic, and the Atlantic Ocean to potential oil drilling.

If a disaster were to happen, an anonymous source at an oil and gas company told Politico, “[W]e’d be painted with it as an entire industry.”

Link to article:  

Psst, Zinke — national monuments create jobs just the way they are!

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Trump’s Behavior in Europe Has Made the World Cringe. Here’s What’s Really on the Line at the G7.

by FriedaMcvay Posted on May 26, 2017

Mother Jones

One year ago Friday, when speaking on a campaign stop in North Dakota, Donald Trump declared he’d “cancel” the Paris climate agreement within 100 days of his presidency, framing it as a “bad deal” that undermines domestic interests. The 100 days have passed, but his unfulfilled pledge hangs over the G7 meeting in Italy.

Trump has already appeared to push a NATO leader aside in Brussels and caused a diplomatic scuffle in Italy after accusing Germany of being “very bad” on trade. But his decision on Paris is far more significant, especially in terms of the response of the 195 signers of the 2015 agreement. The question is whether the rest of the world sinks to the low bar that Trump has set, and the G7 is the first key test. On the one hand, Trump’s resistance may force the G7 to downgrade its climate ambitions and show how US denial is already taking its toll on the global stage. On the other, a G7 that reaffirms Paris goals would demonstrate that the rest of the world won’t be dragged down by America’s new president.

“I think what the other countries are concerned about is that there is not any question about the rest of the industrialized countries raising ambition over time,” says Union of Concerned Scientist’s Director of Strategy and Policy Alden Meyer, who’s followed global climate negotiations for more than 20 years. “That’s why this is so tricky to go along with the US’s minimalist demands in negotiations.”

After world leaders from Germany, France, Canada, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom meet on Friday, senior officials will gather to hammer out a text to try to represent a unified front, with global warming usually ranking among the top priorities. Climate change may not be important to Trump, who’s regularly called it a hoax, but it is to leaders of the G7—and has been for a long time. Meyer, who’s followed global climate negotiations for more than 20 years, points to 2005 as when concerns began, but David Waskow, World Resources Institute’s International Climate Initiative Director, says the focus extends even further back, receiving some mention in every G7 text for the last three decades.

That’s not to say there were never any disagreement. In 2015, Canada, home to carbon-intensive tar sands and then led by the conservative Stephen Harper, resisted strong climate goals but eventually agreed to a long-term decarbonization target that involved phasing out fossil fuel use by the end of the century. Japan, which has higher emissions than most countries in the G7, save for the US, has also historically resisted stronger climate language and has become more reliant on coal ever since it mothballed nuclear plants after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Yet both these countries have changed. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is more committed on climate change than his predecessor was, and Japan has vowed to fulfill its pledges in the Paris agreement. European countries, especially Germany, are expected to take on new leadership in climate negotiations. France’s new President Emmanuel Macron urged Trump in Brussels on Thursday not to abandon the deal.

“We’re seeing a much broader set of actors playing a real leadership role,” says Waskow. “It ranges from major emitters, like the EU, China, and Canada coming together, to many of the most vulnerable countries, to many countries in between, as well as cities, states, and businesses. It’s no longer dependent on one or two countries playing that leadership role.”

But Trump could change everything. The US is still the major polluter in the G7, at 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to self-reported data to the United Nations, and second in the world only to China. France, Italy, and Canada are each responsible for less than 2 percent of global emissions, and Germany and Japan’s slightly higher emissions hardly compare to pollution in the US. If it were up to Trump, the G7 would probably break its tradition on climate change and ignore the issue entirely. His administration is divided on the Paris decision, and the uncertainty has spilled over into other international negotiations.

Even if the US remained in the agreement, it would likely push for lower engagement across the world, urging countries to include language that recognizes the long-term dominance of fossil fuels, which the oil, gas, and coal industries would appreciate seeing. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this month, Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who was an energy adviser on Trump’s campaign, argued that the US should advocate for “advancing technology for clean coal and pushing for increased investment and a better regulatory environment” in future climate talks.

On the other hand, the US will face pressure to flip on Trump’s insistence that we do nothing. We saw that at an Arctic Council meeting with Nordic countries, Russia, and Canada earlier this month, where Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed to text that loosely reaffirmed the Paris climate agreement and global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Headed into the Arctic Council, it wasn’t clear if the US would attempt to remove language on Paris entirely.

Meanwhile, the world waits for Trump to decide: recommit, drop out, or come up with some understanding for continued engagement.

“Some of the Europeans seem to think he may make a decision on the spot in the G7 meeting,” Meyer says. “No one obviously knows. Maybe even including him.”

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Trump’s Behavior in Europe Has Made the World Cringe. Here’s What’s Really on the Line at the G7.

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Trump May Not Care About Climate Change, But the Pentagon Does

by dannhollander37 Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves.

In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the US military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He also stressed this is a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.

“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written answers to questions posed after the public hearing by Democratic members of the committee. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”

Mattis has long espoused the position that the armed forces, for a host of reasons, need to cut dependence on fossil fuels and explore renewable energy where it makes sense. He had also, as commander of the US Joint Forces Command in 2010, signed off on the Joint Operating Environment, which lists climate change as one of the security threats the military expected to confront over the next 25 years.

But Mattis’ written statements to the Senate committee are the first direct signal of his determination to recognize climate change as a member of the Trump administration charged with leading the country’s armed forces.

These remarks and others in the replies to senators could be a fresh indication of divisions or uncertainty within President Donald Trump’s administration over how to balance the president’s desire to keep campaign pledges to kill Obama-era climate policies with the need to engage constructively with allies for whom climate has become a vital security issue.

Mattis’ statements on climate change, for instance, recognize the same body of science that Scott Pruitt, the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, seems dead-set on rejecting. In a CNBC interview last Thursday, Pruitt rejected established science pointing to carbon dioxide as the main driver of recent global warming.

Mattis’ position also would appear to clash with some Trump administration budget plans, which, according to documents leaked recently to The Washington Post, include big cuts for the Commerce Department’s oceanic and atmospheric research 2014 much of it focused on tracking and understanding climate change.

Even setting aside warming driven by accumulating carbon dioxide, it’s clear to a host of experts, including Dr. Will Happer, a Princeton physicist interviewed by Trump in January as a potential science adviser, that better monitoring and analysis of extreme conditions like drought is vital.

Mattis’ statements could hearten world leaders who have urged the Trump administration to remain engaged on addressing global warming. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to meet Trump on Friday.

Security questions related to rising seas and changing weather patterns in global trouble spots like the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa are one reason that global warming has become a focus in international diplomatic forums. On March 10, the United Nations Security Council was warned of imminent risk of famine in Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan.

As well, at a Munich meeting on international security issues last month, attended by Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, European officials pushed back on demands that they spend more on defense, saying their investments in boosting resilience to climate hazards in poor regions of the world are as valuable to maintaining security as strong military forces.

“You need the European Union, because when you invest in development, when you invest in the fight against climate change, you also invest in our own security,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a panel discussion.

Concerns about the implications of global warming for national security have built within the Pentagon and national security circles for decades, including under both Bush administrations.

In September, acting on the basis of a National Intelligence Council report he commissioned, President Obama ordered more than a dozen federal agencies and offices, including the Defense Department, “to ensure that climate change-related impacts are fully considered in the development of national security doctrine, policies, and plans.”

A related “action plan” was issued on Dec. 23, requiring those agencies to create a Climate and National Security Working Group within 60 days, and for relevant agencies to create “implementation plans” in that same period.

There’s no sign that any of this has been done.

Whether the inaction is a function of the widespread gaps in political appointments at relevant agencies, institutional inertia or a policy directive from the Trump White House remains unclear.

Queries to press offices at the White House and half a dozen of the involved agencies 2014 including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Energy and Commerce Department 2014 have not been answered. A State Department spokeswoman directed questions to the National Security Council and the White House, writing:

“We refer you to the NSC for any additional information on the climate working group.”

Mattis’ statements were submitted through a common practice at confirmation hearings in which senators pose “questions for the record” seeking more detail on a nominee’s stance on some issue.

The questions and answers spanned an array of issues, but five Democratic senators on the committee asked about climate change, according to a government official briefed in detail on the resulting 58-page document with the answers. The senators were Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Excerpts from Mattis’ written comments to the committee were in material provided to ProPublica by someone involved with work climate change preparedness at various government agencies. Senate staff confirmed their authenticity.

Dustin Walker, communications director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said responses to individual senators’ follow-up questions are theirs to publish or not.

Here are two of the climate questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, with Mattis’ replies:

Shaheen: “I understand that while you were commander of US Joint Forces Command you signed off on a document called the Joint Operating Environment, which listed climate change as one of the security threats the military will face in the next quarter-century. Do you believe climate change is a security threat?”

Mattis: “Climate change can be a driver of instability and the Department of Defense must pay attention to potential adverse impacts generated by this phenomenon.”

Shaheen: “General Mattis, how should the military prepare to address this threat?”

Mattis: “As I noted above, climate change is a challenge that requires a broader, whole-of government response. If confirmed, I will ensure that the Department of Defense plays its appropriate role within such a response by addressing national security aspects.”

In a reply to another question, Mattis said:

“I agree that the effects of a changing climate 2014 such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others 2014 impact our security situation. I will ensure that the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future, and that we are prepared to address the effects of a changing climate on our threat assessments, resources, and readiness.”

Here is some recommended reading for those seeking more depth:

“Here’s How US Allies Are Trying to Convince Trump To Take Climate Change Seriously“

UN Dispatch, Feb. 22, 2017, by John Light

“Mattis on Military Energy Strategy“

New America, Jan. 13, 2017, by Sharon Burke

“Climate and Security Advisory Group: Briefing Book for a New Administration“

The Center for Climate and Security, Nov. 14, 2017

(The Center for Climate and Security also has a helpful chronology of US defense and intelligence output on these intertwined issues.)

“A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks“

A 2015 report commissioned by the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven

“The National Security Case for Funding the EPA“

The Hill (opinion), March 11, 2017, by Sherri Goodman (a deputy undersecretary of defense from 1993 to 2001)

Also, I ran a discussion on the subject at the Washington offices of the Hoover Institution last month with retired Navy Admiral Gary Roughead, who was chief of naval operations from 2007 to 2011; Alice Hill, who directed work on the intersection of climate and national security policy at the National Security Council during the Obama administration; and David Slayton, a retired Navy officer who is now at Hoover tracking Arctic security and energy policy. Watch the video.

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Trump May Not Care About Climate Change, But the Pentagon Does

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Trump’s Shouty and Insane Press Conference Reminded Russians of…Putin

by KerryDye078 Posted on January 14, 2017

Mother Jones

During Donald Trump’s first press conference as president-elect, he called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage,” shouted down questions from a CNN reporter, and evaded tough questions about the dossier released the day before alleging that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years and had assembled compromising material on him. In the United States, many found Trump’s harsh approach shocking. “It is our observation,” said Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, referring to Trump’s treatment of CNN, “that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect.”

But for some Russians, Trump’s bombastic style at the press conference, his animosity toward journalists, and his rambling nonanswers seemed all too familiar.

“Well, now the U.S. also has a president who never answers a direct question and is rude to journalists,” tweeted opposition activist Tikhon Dzyadko.

Others joked about what would have come next for the disobedient journalists, were they in Putin’s Russia:

“So I guess now Trump will close BuzzFeed and replace the head editor of CNN,” one user tweeted, alluding to the 2013 episode in which Putin unexpectedly shuttered RIA Novosti, a Kremlin-owned but somewhat independent news agency, restructured it as Rossiya Segodnya (“Russia Today,” no relation to the English-language RT), and replaced its top editor with Dmitry Kiselyov, a pro-Putin TV commentator known for extreme anti-gay comments, in what Russian media viewed as another example of the president’s tightening grip over the country’s media sector.

After the press conference, Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, speaking from his own experience, published a letter to the US press on Medium about what to expect from Trump’s behavior toward journalists:

Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear. We, in Russia, have been doing it for 12 years now—â&#128;&#138;with a short hiatus when our leader wasn’t technically our leaderâ&#128;&#138;—â&#128;&#138;so quite a few things during Donald Trump’s press conference rang my bells.

One additional point of comparison: The leaders’ disrespect for facts. “You can’t hurt this man with facts or reason. He’ll always outmaneuver you,” writes Kovalev. “He always comes with a bag of meaningless factoids (Putin likes to drown questions he doesn’t like in dull, unverifiable stats, figures and percentages), platitudes, false moral equivalences and straight, undiluted bullshit.”

Some Russians went a step further, spoofing what the conference would have looked like if some Putinlike idiosyncrasies had been applied. At Putin’s press conferences, journalists are allowed to bring signs, often hinting at the subjects of their questions (“Education,” “the Arctic,” and “Gratitude for the Russian People” are actual signs in the photo below) to attract the leader’s attention. One Twitter user edited a photo from Putin’s December 2016 press conference, adding only a swoop of orange hair and the caption, “The first press conference of US President-elect Donald Trump.” (Hat tip for these tweets to the Moscow Times.)

Other users wondered in jest why American journalists’ questions were so serious—a far cry from the softball queries that have become mainstays of the Russian leader’s press conferences:

“What sort of a press conference is this, after which no one got a new apartment, and an American girl wasn’t gifted a cute puppy?” wrote this user, alluding to times Putin has created pseudo news events by doling out goodies to constituents.

“Why isn’t anyone asking Trump about the roads? I was in Arizona yesterday, there are definitely a couple of potholes.”

“American journalism is dead, insofar as no one is asking Trump where he’ll be spending New Years and what he’ll be serving at his table.”

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Trump’s Shouty and Insane Press Conference Reminded Russians of…Putin

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We Just Found the Most Terrifying GIF on the Internet

by RosieEddy4 Posted on January 9, 2017

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Scientists have long warned us about a climate change tipping point—the moment past which there is no turning back. If you haven’t started panicking yet, now is the time. Last week, Kevin Pluck tweeted an alarming GIF that shows the gradual yet relatively stable decline of global sea ice over the past 40 years before experiencing a sudden drop in 2016.

Visualizing data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the animation borrowed the design of climate scientist Ed Hawkins’ climate spiral, which went viral last year and inspired a reference at the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

According to scientists at the NSIDC, this drop shows the combined disappearance of sea ice at both poles. In mid-November last year, scientists observed an “almost unprecedented” level of Arctic sea ice decline when an area of ice larger than Denmark melted away during a time of year when sea ice typically increases. The Antarctic experienced parallel conditions, with November air temperatures measuring 3.6-7.2°F (2-4°C) warmer than normal.

Both poles play a critical role in stabilizing global temperatures. If these unexpected developments continue, it wouldn’t just spell faster sea level rise but also an unprecedented acceleration of warming that could lead to climate disaster.

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We Just Found the Most Terrifying GIF on the Internet

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What a record-breaking year! Sigh.

by VanitaBurnette8 Posted on December 26, 2016

This year was chock-full of superlatives — and not the good kind — thanks to a sweltering El Niño on top of decades of climate change:

1. The longest streak of record-breaking months, from May 2015 to August 2016. It was the hottest January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September since we began collecting data 137 years ago, according to NOAA.

2. The largest coral bleaching event ever observed. As much as 93 percent of the Great Barrier Reef experienced record-breaking bleaching over the Southern Hemisphere summer, which also wreaked havoc to reefs across the Pacific in the longest-running global bleaching event ever observed.

3. The Arctic is getting really hot. Alaska saw its hottest year ever, with temperatures an average of 6 degrees F above normal. Arctic sea ice cover took a nosedive to a new low this fall, as temperatures at the North Pole reached an insane seasonal high nearly 50 degrees above average. Reminder: There is no sun in the Arctic in December.

4. The first year we spent entirely above 400 ppm. After the biggest monthly jump in atmospheric CO2 levels from February 2015 to February 2016, those levels stayed high for all of 2016.

5. The hottest year. Pending an extreme plunge in global temperatures in the next few days, 2016 will almost certainly be the warmest year humans have ever spent on the Earth’s surface.

Even if it weren’t the hottest year yet, context matters more than year-to-year comparisons. The last five years have been the hottest five on record. The last 16 years contain 15 of the hottest years on record. We are living in unprecedented times.

See?

NOAA

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What a record-breaking year! Sigh.

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Fake news is old news to climate scientists

by c7u433n Posted on December 26, 2016

Think fake news is a recent plague, borne of the presidential election? It’s not.

“The notion of ‘fake news’ is hardly new to climate scientists like myself,” Penn State climatologist Michael Mann told Grist. “We’ve known about it (and written about it) for years.”

Thanks to researchers like Mann — the originator of the famed “hockey stick” chart and a frequent target of fake news himself — the science behind climate change is settled. And yet there remains a vocal contingent of ideologues who refuse to accept the connection between carbon emissions and a warming planet. For example, Donald Trump and a good portion of his proposed cabinet. For years, right-wing news organizations like Breitbart, Infowars, the Daily Caller, and Climate Depot have fed their denial, publishing stories that misinterpret, misrepresent, or distort scientific findings — or just outright lie.

This kind of fake news has set progress back years, if not decades, Mann said. It’s a “crime against the planet,” he told Grist, and a “crime against humanity.”

All the news that’s unfit to print

There are many flavors of fake news. Some of these stories push the idea that, yes, the climate is changing, but it’s just a natural effect of changes in the sun’s activity and humans have nothing to do with it. This theory has been a favorite of deniers for three decades, and even though it’s been widely discredited, Breitbart reported it in again in 2014, under the headline, “Solar Activity Could Cause Global Warming, New Paper Says.” Of course, this runs contrary to actual science, but Breitbart never lets that stop them.

Other fake stories claim that carbon dioxide is good because it increases plant growth, as the ever-optimistic Breitbart declared again last year. But while it’s true that CO2 can be beneficial for plants, it doesn’t outweigh the fact that increasing concentrations in the atmosphere are toasting our home planet. Good for plants does not equal good for people.

Bogus climate stories also allege that a so-called “pause” in global warming undermines established climate science. Although climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that temperatures are rising and climate change is real, there has been debate over whether the rate of temperature increase slowed in the early 2000s — which climate deniers refer to as the “pause” or “hiatus.” Fake media outlets have seized on this debate and tried to spin it as proof that climate change isn’t real: Breitbart even claimed that Mann jumped on the pause bandwagon, deserted his scientific colleagues, and decided that there’s been no global warming since 1998. This was likely news to Mann himself.

There’s also the classic seasonal variety of stories alleging that cold, snowy weather disproves climate change. This reached a fever pitch in 2015, when Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe threw a snowball on the Senate floor. What Inhofe and his fellow deniers don’t get is that weather is not climate. Climate change is about long-term warming trends, not individual weather events, and so snow and climate change just aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, a warming climate could actually lead to an increase in snowfall in some places as melting sea ice in the Arctic alters jet streams.

And, of course, some deniers claim that this whole thing is a vast conspiracy perpetrated by scientists hungry for government research money. (They have never, apparently, seen what climate scientists drive.) Others — like our president-elect — say it’s a hoax created by China to crush U.S. manufacturing. Still other deniers insist that it’s a scheme cooked up by Al Gore to make himself rich — but, not to worry, they also tell us that Al Gore was sued by 30,000 scientists for his global warming fraud.

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories are hard to combat. Research shows that when presented with evidence that contradicts our beliefs, instead of reconsidering those beliefs, we humans tend to double-down on our preconceived notions. So if you already believe climate change is the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American public or that the Earth hasn’t warmed in 17 years or that this is all a big Communist plot, it’s unlikely that evidence to the contrary will dissuade you.

Some deniers — perhaps those who really believe Al Gore was sued by 30,000 scientists — think climate science is a lie because of the misinformation they absorb every day on TV and through social media. But other deniers have a more base motivation: money. The most high-profile deniers — people like Inhofe and Climate Depot’s Marc Morano — are backed by the fossil fuel industry. Exxon alone spent over $30 million to fund climate-denying organizations between 1998 and 2014, and an investigation by Carbon Brief found that nine of the 10 most prolific authors of papers skeptical of climate change have ties to Exxon. The industrialist Koch brothers, too, have spent a fortune on climate denial, donating nearly $50 million between 1997 and 2008 to groups that work to undermine climate science.

The money, it seems, was well-spent. Right-wing media outlets spread those groups’ misleading messages far and wide. So while the rest of the world has long since accepted the reality of climate change and humanity’s role in causing it, in the U.S., not only are we still debating its existence, but a climate change denier is about to occupy the White House.

Reality strikes back

Soon, however, there may be a cost to spreading misinformation about climate scientists, if not about climate change itself. The D.C. Court of Appeals recently ruled that Mann can proceed with a defamation suit against two bloggers who called his work fraudulent — and worse.

“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,” wrote Rand Simberg in a 2012 post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s blog, “except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in service of politicized science that could have dire consequences for the nation and planet.” The National Review’s Mark Steyn then quoted these comments in a post of his own, writing that Simberg “has a point” and calling Mann’s work “fraudulent.”

For this, the court has ruled that Mann can sue both bloggers as well as their institutions — but you wouldn’t know that from the headlines in the climate-denying press. Climate Depot reported, “Court dismisses Michael Mann defamation lawsuit against National Review.” This is a clear manipulation of the truth: While the court did dismiss Mann’s claims against one National Review editor, its ruling clearly says that Mann can proceed with his suit against Steyn and National Review itself. But if we learned anything from the election of 2016, it’s that truth no longer carries much weight.

In the court’s ruling, Judge Vanessa Ruiz wrote, “Tarnishing the personal integrity and reputation of a scientist important to one side may be a tactic to gain advantage in a no-holds-barred debate over global warming.” It’s not a new tactic, but tarnishing reputations and publishing lies has proved to be an effective one. As for how destructive, we’re soon to find out.

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Fake news is old news to climate scientists

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In Ironic Twist, Conservatives Finally Win War on Christmas But Kill Santa in the Process

by DelilaSalgado Posted on December 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest version of the Arctic meltdown, this time in cheerful Christmas colors:

For a while there, it looked like maybe things were heading back down to normal, but then a few weeks ago temps started spiking again. It’s now more than 30 degrees warmer than normal at the North Pole.

Data since 1958 is here. If you click through the years, you’ll see that the previous record was somewhere around 15 degrees above normal for maybe a week or two. Current Arctic temps are not only higher than they’ve ever been, but they’ve lasted for about four months so far. I am pretty sure this means Santa’s workshop has long since fallen through the thin ice and disappeared forever into the inky depths of the Arctic waters. Sorry about that, kids.

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In Ironic Twist, Conservatives Finally Win War on Christmas But Kill Santa in the Process

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Obama put a permanent kibosh on offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic.

by StefanieCallaway Posted on December 20, 2016

The administration announced Tuesday that President Obama will use a provision in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to halt new offshore drilling in parts of federally owned Arctic and Atlantic waters — forever. While previous presidents have used that act to protect parts of the ocean, this is the first time it’s been exercised to enact a permanent ban on drilling. Canada will also indefinitely ban future drilling in its Arctic territory, the country said in the joint announcement.

The announcement came four weeks shy of Obama’s White House departure. President-elect Trump, a climate change denier, has vowed to undo many of Obama’s executive orders as well as dismantle the Clean Power Plan, open more federal lands to drilling, and withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.

But by using an existing act instead of issuing an executive order, Obama made the reversal of this drilling ban more difficult for his successor.

“We know now, more clearly than ever, that a Trump presidency will mean more fossil fuel corruption and less governmental protection for people and the planet, so decisions like these are crucial,” said Greenpeace spokesperson Travis Nichols. “President Obama should do this and more to stop any new fossil fuel infrastructure that would lock in the worst effects of climate change.”

This story has been updated. 

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Obama put a permanent kibosh on offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic.

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