Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Syt]

Because why even fucking pretend anymore?



https://www.npr.org/2020/09/12/912301325/longtime-climate-science-denier-hired-at-noaa

Longtime Climate Science Denier Hired At NOAA

David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology who has spent much of his career questioning basic tenets of climate science, has been hired for a top position at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Legates confirmed to NPR that he was recently hired as NOAA's deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction. The position suggests that he reports directly to Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the agency that is in charge of the federal government's sprawling weather and climate prediction work.

Neither Legates nor NOAA representatives responded to questions about Legates' specific responsibilities or why he was hired. The White House also declined to comment.

Legates has a long history of using his position as an academic scientist to publicly cast doubt on climate science. His appointment to NOAA comes as Americans face profound threats stoked by climate change, from the vast, deadly wildfires in the West to an unusually active hurricane season in the South and East.

Global temperatures have already risen nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Warming is happening the fastest at the Earth's poles, where sea ice is melting, permafrost is thawing and ocean temperatures are heating up, with devastating effects on animals and humans alike.

In 2007, Legates was one of the authors of a paper that questioned previous findings about the role of climate change in destroying the habitat of polar bears. That research was partially funded by grants from Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute lobbying group and ExxonMobil, according to InsideClimate News.

The same year, Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner sent a letter to Legates expressing concern about his opinions on climate change, given that he was the state climatologist at the time. Minner asked him to refrain from casting doubt on climate science when he was acting in his official role. Legates stepped down in 2011.

Legates also appeared in a video pushing the discredited theory that the sun is the cause of global warming. In testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2014, Legates argued that a climate science report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change erroneously stated that humans are causing global warming.

Legates is a professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware. He is also affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a think tank that has poured money into convincing Americans that climate change is not happening and that the scientific evidence — including evidence published by the agency that now employs Legates — is uncertain or untrustworthy.

Advocates who reject mainstream climate science, such as those at Heartland, have had a leading role in shaping the Trump administration's response to global warming, including the decision to exit the Paris climate accord.

Steve Milloy, a Heartland board member and part of Trump's Environmental Protection Agency transition team, says he welcomes the Legates appointment. "David Legates is a true climate scientist and will bring a great deal of much-needed science to NOAA," Milloy writes in an email to NPR.

But climate researchers slammed NOAA's decision to appoint Legates to a key scientific position.

"He's not just in left field — he's not even near the ballpark," says Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at Oregon State University and head of NOAA under President Barack Obama.

Contrarians in science are welcome, Lubchenco says, but their claims have to be scientifically defensible. That's why official groups like the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change review the entire range of scientific research before reaching a conclusion.

Over the last 20 years, in his work and public statements, Legates has rejected the overwhelming peer-reviewed research that shows human activity is the main driver of a dangerously changing climate.

Michael Mann, professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, says in an email to NPR that Legates has, throughout his career, "misrepresented the science of climate change, serving as an advocate for polluting interests as he dismisses and downplays the impacts of climate change."

Mann adds: "At a time when those impacts are playing out before our very eyes in the form of unprecedented wildfires out West and super-storms back East, I cannot imagine a more misguided decision than to appoint someone like Legates to a position of leadership at an agency that is tasked with assessing the risks we face from extreme weather events."

[Eddie Teach]

How big is the organization that "deputy assistant secretary" is considered a position of leadership? 

[crazy canuck]

Not a secretary in the sense you might be thinking.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm thinking the government sense. Still, two qualifiers.

[crazy canuck]

I'm thinking the government sense. Still, two qualifiers.

Reporting directly to the Head of the organization.  So top of whatever denial bullshit division they have created for him.

[Grey Fox]

The smoke from the fires have reached southern Quebec.

[The Brain]

Not a secretary in the sense you might be thinking.

No spankings?

[merithyn]

Things were supposed to be better here today. They're only marginally better: 260 instead of 360. At least it's not hazardous? Though it will be tonight, and for the rest of the week. Friday they're predicting rain, which may or may not help.

I'm going to die.

[PDH]

Rain will help.  It will coat everything with a massive and fast hardening layer of ick, but that is what helped us get our air back with the large fires a couple of years ago to the north.

Here, the wind is blowing straight off the ocean today, so things are a wee bit better.  In the Central Valley it is really bad though.

I'm going to die as well, eventually.  Not from this, however. 

What doesn't kill us only weakens us slowly so some lightweight and worthless thing will kill us.

[Josquius]

Heard an interesting theory the other day. That this gung ho anti environment shit in the US is heavily linked to evangelicalism. That if you believe the end of the universe is inevitably coming within your lifetime then global warming is quite irrelevant and is clearly just nonsense spread by those who don't believe the end is nigh.
More worryingly some even go full accelerationist and see the climate going to hell as something to encourage to hasten judgement day.
Sure makes sense for explaining the craziest of the crazies. Quite how much it filters out into people who don't drink paint is another question.

[crazy canuck]

I can see the sky!!!!!!

But it is only supposed to last a couple of hours and then the smoke is coming back.  But it is amazing how good it is for the soul to actually see the sun again.

[Zoupa]

Still smoky as fuck here in Kelowna.

[Berkut]

Heard an interesting theory the other day. That this gung ho anti environment shit in the US is heavily linked to evangelicalism. That if you believe the end of the universe is inevitably coming within your lifetime then global warming is quite irrelevant and is clearly just nonsense spread by those who don't believe the end is nigh.
More worryingly some even go full accelerationist and see the climate going to hell as something to encourage to hasten judgement day.
Sure makes sense for explaining the craziest of the crazies. Quite how much it filters out into people who don't drink paint is another question.

I think even if you don't think the world is going to end, a certain kind of religious thought makes it easy to dismiss concerns about over use of climate damage.

After all, if the entire universe is created and governed by some supreme being for the primary purpose of having somewhere to stick humans, then we don't really have to worry about the idea that reality could be set up in such a way that we could actually break it, right?

Surely if the Earth is getting warmer, it is because it SHOULD be getting warmer, because that is what God wants - and it probably really isn't anyway.

Religion in the best case leaves an out for denial of science, because at the end of the day, even actual science is just a creation of god anyway, and clearly he is not to be bound by it.

[merithyn]

I can see the sky!!!!!!

But it is only supposed to last a couple of hours and then the smoke is coming back.  But it is amazing how good it is for the soul to actually see the sun again.

Still smoky as fuck here in Kelowna.

You guys have no idea.....

[crazy canuck]

yeah we have not gone over 300, that must be hell.