Last month a coalition of 18 Scientific organizations (and these are big ones...some of the biggest in the world) issued this statement (PDF) to the Senate:

Dear Senator:

As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.  read more »

The Empire State Building and most of Manhattan around me joins Earth Hour. From EarthHour.org:

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from. VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.

One more :  read more »

The latest drivel from anti-Science Global Warming Deniers is this:

Global warming stopped in 1998 and it has been cooling since then.

I am hearing this all over the place. What they then do is carefully pick the temperatures from individual years and compare them with other individual years to try and show a pattern that suggests cooling. There are three problems with this.

First, the possibility of cooling trends, locally or temporary, is quite likely within a general warming trend. Climate does not change linearly, but will vary up and down from year to year. This is why, as I will say again below, individual years are not significant. An individual year can include anomalies like El Nino or La Nina conditions. In addition, things like volcanic eruptions can cause temporary cooling (something deniers like Rush Limbaugh seemed to ignore when they used to claim, in the 1990's, that global warming was caused by Mt. Pinatubo). An initial cooling over Antarctica was predicted by the global warming models. This Antarctic cooling has been used by some deniers, who either don't realize or ignore that temporary cooling of Antarctica was predicted by the models, as "evidence" that global warming wasn't happening. Well, as predicted, that cooling trend has ended even in Antarctica. The only deviation from what was predicted by the models was the temporary cooling didn't last as long as predicted.

Second, there is a major error made by the deniers: you do NOT judge science based on selected data points. Only using a complete data set. The deniers cherry pick individual years to make their point. Scientists use entire data sets. When you do that, THIS is what you see:

And THIS:

 read more »

This week Obama named one of his best cabinet picks yet: Dr. Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, former chair of Stanford University's physics department, and Nobel Prize-winning (for research in laser cooling and trapping of atoms) physicist, was named Obama's Energy Secretary. Chu also has been an early and strong supporter of alternative fuels and renewable energy research. THIS is the kind of leadership this country needs!

It should be noted that this is the FIRST Energy Secretary who is genuinely an expert on energy.

Dr. Chu's impressive biography can be found here.

Here's a video of Steve Chu at the Davos Annual Meeting, 2007, talking about Climate Change:  read more »

Every now and then DG's sister site, Culture Kitchen, gets targeted by global warming deniers. Honestly, we are way past the time for denial on this issue, but deniers are still out there and CK is one of the sites they target. And having to counter the same denial yammering over and over again gets a bit frustrating for me.

But sometimes we also get responses from another corner: actual scientists. And I find those reponses far more gratifying. In a diary I wrote addressing the latest denial drivel is an excellent response from the American Physical Society (APS) that is worth highlighting in a diary (thanks to Tawanda Johnson for posting the APS statement in my diary on CK):

APS Reaffirms Position on Climate Change
July 22, 2008

American Physical Society Reaffirms Its Position that Human-Caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions Contribute to Climate Change

WASHINGTON, DC — American Physical Society (APS) today reaffirmed its position on climate change issued last November, releasing the following statement:  read more »