Pure Genius: More Oil for Climate Change

Treating lung cancer is outrageously expensive (have you seen “Breaking Bad“?). What if I suggested that we should grow more tobacco, and get more people to smoke cigarettes, so the increased revenue can help pay for treatment costs?

Or how about this: let’s produce more tobacco and create some brilliant marketing campaigns to get more people to smoke, but only do that in third-world countries so it’s somebody else’s problem, not ours. That way, we won’t have more lung cancer and emphysema and bronchitis here in the good old U.S.A., and we can use some of the revenue to help pay for treatment here in the good old U.S.A. — where we’re so good.

Wait a minute … did I say grow more tobacco to pay for lung cancer? I meant drill for more oil to pay for climate change.

CO2 Increase

CO₂ in our atmosphere is still increasing. In fact this year the annual average amount has passed 400 ppmv (part per million by volume) for the first time in a long time — at least a million years. The reason: we’re burning fossil fuels like oil, coal, natural gas. When we do, it turns that long-buried carbon into carbon dioxide, which ends up in the atmosphere. It’s as simple as that.

A Big Deal

Remember when Matt Pearce wrote an article printed in the LA Times making it sound as though the wildfire situation in the western U.S. this year is no big deal?

Reports from the National Interagency Fire Center say that this year has the most acres burned year-to-date in the U.S.

But wait — there’s more! Even though this year isn’t over yet (nearly three months remain), we’ve already set a new record:

Those black dots are yearly totals — the red one, circled, is only the year so far. With nearly three months to go, and October a traditionally bad fire month for California … how much worse will it get?

Is this what we can expect on a regular basis? I’m not referring to wildfire years — I mean, no matter what happens, people making it sound like it’s “no big deal”?

I’m Getting Through … and so are most of you

Watch the video, and note that at the 7-minute mark (from 7:00 to 7:15) Senator Whitehouse, on the senate floor, quotes me:

The Denier Castle is Crumbling

Rapidly

Arctic Sea Ice

Let’s take a look at what Arctic sea ice extent has been up to over the years. We’ll use the satellite data which extend back to late 1978, rather than the MASIE data which don’t start until 2006 (especially since those who publish it recommend using the satellite data anyway).

Miami flooding

People are noticing:

Sleaziest Politician: Global Warming Edition

Glenn Beck recently interviewed Carly Fiorina. Here’s part of their conversation:

Beck: You believe in global warming, that it’s man-made.

Fiorina: No, I didn’t say that. What I said was, scientists tell us that global warming is real and man-made.

My opinion: Carly Fiorina makes Donald Trump look good.

Epidemic of Denial

Wouldn’t you know it, I just posted about how dumb it is to talk about “trends” without enough data to talk about trends intelligently, when it’s brought to my attention that there’s yet another example of doing just that.

Same Old Same Old

Here’s temperature anomaly in the USA (yearly averages for the “lower 48”) since 1880, according to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration):