Climate Change – Page 5

This has been a dream for a long time. I worked as an undergrad on using spinach photosystem I to produce hydrogen using light. Biomimetics are huge and gains have been made on the photosynthesis front. One person to look at is Barry Bruce at the University of Tennessee. A few years back Forbes named Barry one of ten people that could change the world. I’ve known Barry for a long time and can say he is full of sh!t, but he is also full of great ideas and passion. His work with M.I.T. has helped revolutionize the efficiency of using direct sunlight as a fuel. Barry always uses great facts in his presentation about how much actual energy the earth receives from the sun and how little humans have been able to tap into it ( I think it’s around 1%). With more research, maybe someday we will be able to utilize 2%. (cross your fingers)

January 16, 2013February 8, 2013

The Audacity of Facts: If God Told Scientists to Warn Us of Climate Change, Would Skeptics Listen? « Taking Science to the People

This will probably be my last soap box post for a while, but I couldn’t help myself. The title came to me last week and I have been sitting on it since. The body of the post is coming to me as I write (so much for background research). I think what sent me over the edge was the article I found and posted earlier this week about the continuous lies spewed on Fox News. This time, it’s about climate change. Many people watch Fox News (religiously). This is their major source of information and don’t fact check the 24 hour news channel.

I remember my first conversation with a climate change skeptic; dinner in Boston in 2008 at the ASM General Meeting. It was a friend of my boss from Omaha (not a scientist). There was nothing we could say that he would even consider as fact. As insiders (scientists), we tried to detail to him that the data are very clear and there is a virtual consensus among scientists that climate change is 1) occurring and 2) accelerated by man made actions. Needless to say, our blood was boiling. What would it take for someone to listen to facts?

Here it is four years later and we still have skeptics; for many reasons. They hold on to different flavors of skeptic Kool Aid; there isn’t even consensus among scientists, Climategate exposed the conspiracy behind climate change, the models are wrong or manipulated.

Over the past two decades, all published, peer-reviewed articles addressing climate, greater than 95% have stated both that climate change is occurring or about the affects the industrial revolution has had on climate.

Climategate some years ago leaked 5000 documents, mostly emails, between climatologists prior to an IPCC meeting. The leaked docs were filtered to skew the message and try to bias public opinion before the meeting. Several international advisory committees exonerated the authors of the documents from any wrong doing and stated no manipulation of data had occurred.

Models are just that…models. They are computer generated taking the most current data into account. The models are getting better, but even 20 year old models are showing to be accurate. The first IPCC meeting in 1990 released a model of average global temperatures through 2030. From an article by Ars Technica taken from a report in Nature Climate Change:

The most frequently cited projection estimates 0.7–1.5°C of warming between 1990 and 2030, which means we would see an increase of about 0.35 – 0.75 °C through 2010. (The range of values is a product of uncertainty about the exact sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases.) The observed temperature trend through 2010 is about 0.35–0.39°C, depending on the dataset.

Spot on.

So, what will it take for skeptics to accept data as fact instead of propaganda from tree huggers? God, I wish I knew…

Why Climate Scientists Have Consistently UNDERestimated Key Global Warming Impacts (thinkprogress.org)
UN admits the sun may cause global warming (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)

January 14, 2013

Accepting The Facts About #ClimateChange – Business Insider #Science

I wanted to say a few words about this article. I thought David Wogan did a great job. A very level-headed approach. Maybe this is more along the lines of what needs to done going forward in the discussion about climate change. Looking back at the rise of climate change skepticism which paralleled the financial collapse of our financial institutions. The infusion of money from moguls like the Koch brothers (example: Heartland Institute) as well as the PR campaign by ExxonMobil to make climate change synonymous with more/bigger government made the ability of Congress to act impossible. The Senate was able to pass a Carbon Tax bill just before the Fourth of July Holiday Break of Congress with the House scheduled to vote on it after the break. However, this allowed House members to hear from very vocal constituents that had been fleeced by biased skeptics. It was game over for any action on climate change. Once again, the 1% got their way; using the power of persuasion via a well-oiled money machine. If the public could understand the clear consensus among scientists (the people who actually know what is going on) and the origin of denial, then much needed action could begin to occur. As posted earlier, a recent report from the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators 2o12, an internet survey of respondent scientists showed 84% thought climate change was due to human activity while only 49% of the general public thought the same while another 36% believed the earth was warming by natural causes (10% of scientists responded the same). So, looking at the numbers, 94% of responding scientists believe in climate change and 85% of the general public. The bottom line is that we as scientists have done a poor job communicating the consensus in our community to the general public. Hopefully, this article can be a start to a new revolution.

Accepting The Facts About Climate Change – Business Insider.

January 11, 2013February 8, 2013

Using heat from the Earth’s core for energy production

I was looking over the Office of Science (DOE) webpage and found Dr. Brinkman’s presentations page.

I hadn’t noticed this one before; harnessing geothermal source for a novel mass production power plant. The first activity of the Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are planned for next year.

Geothermal Energy (energyscience.wordpress.com)
DOE plans to renew info drive on Sorsogon energy sources (sorsogoncity.wordpress.com)

January 10, 2013

Science and Engineering Indicators 2012 and the General Public Opinion

For fun this morning, I typed “Public literacy of science issues” into Google, and I’m glad I did. One of the first results was the National Science Board’s Science and Engineering Indicators report page. Unlike previous reports, the latest report (2012) includes a downloadable ‘digest’ pdf. Here is a digest of the digest:

For the first time, total R & D expenditures broke the trillion dollar barrer:

Here is a look at where U.S. government R & D funding went over the past few years:

Interesting data regarding incoming freshmen intentions and actual degrees awarded in engineering. Half the freshmen who intend to graduate with engineering degree actually do. However, almost all who intend to graduate with a natural science degree do:

But I digress…public literacy of science issues; here are the highlights:

Good news! 91% of Americans are very or moderately interested in new scientific discoveries. American’s factual knowledge of science is positively related to their formal education level and the number of science and math classes they have taken. Younger generations exhibit higher factual knowledge of science than older generations. American’s understanding of the process of scientific inquiry is strongly correlated with their level of factual knowledge of science, level of formal education, and the number of completed science and math classes.

Interestingly, Scientist is second only to firefighter in public perception and held with ‘very great prestige’

What is startling to me is the vast difference between scientists’ and general public’s attitudes toward specific science and tech-related issues, especially human activity causing climate change and evolution: