Atmospheric carbon dioxide reaches new record high

The Keeling Curve graph [source | full size (568×318)]

How’s this for a cheery, not-at-all-foreboding milestone?

On May 9, 2013, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide hit a new record high. Announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the levels of CO₂ in the air on that day* reached a daily average of 400 parts per million (ppm). This is the highest level of atmospheric CO₂ in human history, and in fact the highest level for at least 800,000 years. It gets worse: the amount of CO₂ in the air likely hasn’t been this high since the Pliocene Epoch, more than three million years ago.

[…]

• CO2 levels are rising, and they’re rising far faster than any time in human history (and at least for the past 11,000 years).
• CO2 is for real and for sure tied to rising heat content of the Earth. For quite some time that heat has been going into the air, and we’ve seen rising temperatures around the world. At the moment, a lot of that heat is going into warming the oceans, but climatologists expect to see air temperatures increasing rapidly again soon.
• This has direct impacts, like increased temperatures in the air and water, melting ice, and more severe weather. It also has indirect impacts, like fluctuating weather patterns. This makes it difficult to tag any freak storm to climate change, but it does mean that over time, we’ll see more and more. Worse droughts and floods, more forest fires, increased ocean acidification, and more are all expected due to increased carbon dioxide in the air.
• All this is happening on a timescale hugely accelerated over natural cycles. The Earth tends to changes over millions of years; we’re doing this to it in just a century. Without time to adapt, this will have a profound impact on life around the globe.

B-b-but it’s cold outside where I live at the moment!

Ancient Peruvian mountain ice undone in two decades

Whoulda thunk it: Those conspiracy-mongering scientists are so influential with their all their “climate change”-talk that they’ve even got the weather around the globe going along with their crazy warnings:

Glacial ice in the Peruvian Andes that took at least 1,600 years to form has melted in just 25 years, scientists reported Thursday, the latest indication that the recent spike in global temperatures has thrown the natural world out of balance.

The evidence comes from a remarkable find at the margins of the Quelccaya ice cap in Peru, the world’s largest tropical ice sheet. Rapid melting there in the modern era is uncovering plants that were locked in a deep freeze when the glacier advanced many thousands of years ago.

[…]

Global warming, which scientists say is being caused primarily by the human release of greenhouse gases, is having its largest effects at high latitudes and high altitudes. Sitting at high elevation in the tropics, the Quelccaya ice cap appears to be extremely sensitive to the temperature changes, several scientists said.

[…]

Throughout the Andes, glaciers are now melting so rapidly that scientists have grown deeply concerned about water supplies for the people living there. Glacial meltwater is essential for helping Andean communities get through the dry season.

In the short run, the melting is producing an increase of water supplies and feeding population growth in major cities of the Andes, the experts said. But as the glaciers continue shrinking, trouble almost certainly looms.

Douglas R. Hardy, a University of Massachusetts researcher who works in the region, said, “How much time do we have before 50 percent of Lima’s or La Paz’s water resources are gone?”

Over a millennium’s worth of accumulation undone in a few short years? Impending water shortages that threaten millions of people? Bah, it’s all just a hoax from all those alarmists and lying scientists and whatnot. No need to actually do anything at all. Everything’s just fine. After all, would corporations lie to you?

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Daily Blend: 03/13/2013

TJ Kincaid

Heads Up: Later today/tomorrow is when Disqus is slated to force its “upgraded” platform upon users (like me) who still cling to the old, customizable version. Might take a little while for changes to take effect. Stay tuned.

I’m also trying out a new title style for this Daily Blend (rather than the usual long-form date). We’ll see if it sticks. That is all.

Oh, look, it’s another bone-chilling climate study for pseudoscientists and ideologues to deny and lie about!

New Zealand votes to guarantee passage of same-sex marriage. Yay!
(via Joe. My. God.)

Some more gay (in both senses) news: Floundering “ex-gay” group National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) loses tax exempt status, forced to slice their Rentboy budget.
(via Joe. My. God.)

This just in: TJ Kincaid ^[pictured] is still an embarrassment to the atheist community and humanity in general. (Also: Go, Anita Sarkeesian!)
(via @SallyStrange; RT: @jennifurret)

Virginia steps a little further into the 21^st Century by overturning law against “consensual sodomy”. (Wingnut outrage in 3 … 2 …)
(via Joe. My. God.)

And finally, here’s an interactive infographic of global Internet porn habits. (East Europe is amazingly perverted.)
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, February 18, 2013

Rhonda McGee

Iowa woman ^[pictured] “arrested and charged with intent to manufacture [crystal] meth” after buying cold medicine for her allergies – without even violating legal limits.
(via @radleybalko)

In case you somehow missed it, Phil Plait has breathless coverage of last Friday’s spectacular Russian meteoric fireball, along with a reassurance that no, the Universe is not out to get us lately (any more than usual, that is).

The Heartland Institute: Still a bunch of lyin’ liars about climate change.
(via @BadAstronomer)

And finally, here be morans. (To be fair, the handrail looks like it broke and slid askew rather than got installed that way.)
(via @RichardWiseman; RT: @pzmyers)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, January 14, 2013

Julie Burchill

Carnival of insanity: Wyoming Republicans push blatantly illegal bill to hypothetically imprison federal agents who try to enforce gun control laws.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Oldie but goody: Economist thoroughly debunks several myths about Canada’s socialized healthcare system. (No, doctors and Canadians don’t think the U.S. system is better.)

Professional asshat Julie Burchill ^[pictured] flames out spectacularly against “vociferous transexual lobby” – aka “bunch of dicks in chicks' clothing” – for criticizing her friend’s transphobic rhetoric. What is it with this pervasive hatred of MtF folk amongst some feminist ranks?
(via @ggreenwald; original Observer article since retracted)

Another debunking of the brazen lie about there supposedly being no global warming for 16 years.

Meanwhile, Vox Day still loves flogging the necrotic equine of confirmation bias and blatant bullshit.

But then, what else to expect from a guy who actually thinks the Canadian government is “preemptively ban[ning] sexbots” – because of feminists’ “pursuit for gender equality”?

Canadian parents are apparently quite fond of quackery.

And finally, church signs are so useful for revealing exactly which attitudes are encouraged:
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Extreme weather goes on a worldwide rampage

The world, she burns (and freezes, and drowns):

Britons may remember 2012 as the year the weather spun off its rails in a chaotic concoction of drought, deluge and flooding, but the unpredictability of it all turns out to have been all too predictable: Around the world, extreme has become the new commonplace.

Especially lately. China is enduring its coldest winter in nearly 30 years. Brazil is in the grip of a dreadful heat spell. Eastern Russia is so freezing — minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and counting — that the traffic lights recently stopped working in the city of Yakutsk.

Bush fires are raging across Australia, fueled by a record-shattering heat wave. Pakistan was inundated by unexpected flooding in September. A vicious storm bringing rain, snow and floods just struck the Middle East. And in the United States, scientists confirmed this week what people could have figured out simply by going outside: last year was the hottest since records began.

“Each year we have extreme weather, but it’s unusual to have so many extreme events around the world at once,” said Omar Baddour, chief of the data management applications division at the World Meteorological Organization, in Geneva. “The heat wave in Australia; the flooding in the U.K., and most recently the flooding and extensive snowstorm in the Middle East — it’s already a big year in terms of extreme weather calamity.”

Such events are increasing in intensity as well as frequency, Mr. Baddour said, a sign that climate change is not just about rising temperatures, but also about intense, unpleasant, anomalous weather of all kinds.

One of the most difficult myths about global warming to dispel is the idea that it only causes temperatures to rise, when the reality is that even slight increases in average global temperatures actually results in fluctuations across the spectrum, hot to cold and dry to wet. Meanwhile, around here, we’ve been seeing abnormally high temperatures; it’s currently above freezing for the n^th time since temperatures were supposed to drop to the -10–20°C (14 to -4°F) one would expect for Québec in mid-January.

If only I were a denialist; it must be fun to be able to enjoy such clement times without any thought or concern for the many grave ramifications they entail. Blissful (or willful) ignorance and all that.

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

EDIT: 01/12/13 2:08 AM ET – Added Fahrenheit equivalent for you Yanks.

Daily Blend: Thursday, January 10, 2013

Rev. Louie Giglio

Tulsa, Oklahoma Planned Parenthood clinic forced to shut down due to slashed funding.

Anti-gay Christianist asshat Rev. Louie Giglio ^[pictured] voluntarily backs out from President Obama’s inauguration. Spokeswoman claims the Administration wasn’t aware of his history of bigotry.

U.K. Met Office blog kicks the Daily Mail’s ass over its latest garbage-packed global-warming-denying article.
(via @BadAstronomer)

Jebus: Cops barge into home without warrant or probable cause, shoot sleepy man 16 times (somehow without killing him) when he reaches for a flashlight. But of course, this “perceived risk” meant their actions were “justified”.
(via @radleybalko)

And finally, some good news: We won’t get smashed into Earthling purée in 2036 after all!

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Government report: 2012 was hottest year ever for U.S.

To the surprise of absolutely no-one in North America, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that 2012 was officially the hottest year on record for the continental U.S. and had the second most extreme weather to boot:

Last year was officially the hottest ever recorded for the lower-48 states. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric tallied weather and temperature data for 2012, and found that the year was both the warmest and the second-most extreme for weather ever recorded for the contiguous U.S.

According to NOAA’s latest “State of the Climate” report, the average temperature for the lower-48 states was 55.3°, which is 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above the previous record-year of 1998.

Last year was marked by an historic drought, above-average wildfires, multiple freak storms that wiped out power to millions, and multiple severe heat waves. According to the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, 2012 was the second most extreme year on record — coming in below 1998, the previous hottest year on record.

Precipitation was also down significantly in 2012. Average rainfall for the lower-48 states was 2.57 inches below average, contributing to the severe drought that gripped the nation and helping make the wildfire season the third most destructive on record.

I wonder if 2012 will also make the last 12 years the 12 hottest ever recorded since temperature-keeping began in the 1800s.

But even then, I’m sure if the denialists throw up enough noise and fuss, the overwhelming evidence will all just magically go away and we’ll all be just fine without any need to take any real action to deal with the consequences of our society’s collective greed and complacency. (After all, that works for the ostriches, right?)

Daily Blend: Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Busy reading, so have an early Daily Blend for today.

I am shocked – shocked! – to learn that the anti-feminist/Atheism Plus/Freethought Blogs camp doesn’t actually have any good arguments.

Study: West Antarctica is warming up twice as fast as predicted and at thrice the planetary average rate.
(via ThinkProgess)

White House website petition to label Westboro Baptist Church a “hate group” is the most popular ever. Only problem: No such designation exists under any U.S. law.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

And finally, here’s one particularly creepy ritual put into perspective:

Don’t forget the hover text! [‘Communion’ | xkcd (by Randall Munroe)]

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Pie chart: Why climate deniers have no scientific credibility

Think what you will of simplified charts, but they do carry a point across with devastating clarity:

A little more detail:

By my definition, 24 of the 13,950 articles, 0.17% or 1 in 581, clearly reject global warming or endorse a cause other than CO2 emissions for observed warming. The list of articles that reject global warming is here. The 24 articles have been cited a total of 113 times over the nearly 21-year period, for an average of close to 5 citations each. That compares to an average of about 19 citations for articles answering to "global warming," for example. Four of the rejecting articles have never been cited; four have citations in the double-digits. The most-cited has 17.

The author also explains why the remaining 99.83% of published peer-reviewed climate articles aren’t just blindly assumed to support the reality of anthropogenic climate change:

I read whatever combination of titles, abstracts, and entire articles was necessary to identify articles that "reject" human-caused global warming. To be classified as rejecting, an article had to clearly and explicitly state that the theory of global warming is false or, as happened in a few cases, that some other process better explains the observed warming. Articles that merely claimed to have found some discrepancy, some minor flaw, some reason for doubt, I did not classify as rejecting global warming. Articles about methods, paleoclimatology, mitigation, adaptation, and effects at least implicitly accept human-caused global warming and were usually obvious from the title alone.

More precious data to keep in your back pocket for the next time some denialist tries to make it sound like there’s any kind of a debate within the scientific community concerning the reality of (almost certainly anthropogenic) climate change. You know, like they do when pretending there’s any real scientific disagreement about the Theory of Evolution. Or that vaccines cause autism. Or that HIV doesn’t lead to AIDS. Or any other bogus idea that flies in the face of any other thoroughly well-established fundamental of the scientific world.

(via Pharyngula)

Daily Blend: Sunday, November 18, 2012

Saw Skyfall last night. Excellent movie, and a damned good Bond tribute as well. Surprisingly powerful ending, at least for me, and more than a little sad. 8.5/10.

Meanwhile, I’m busy with music-making (more specifically, music-software-work-correctly-making), so no blogging for you. Except for these links.

It seems the new Niagara Falls Reporter publisher/editor is a sub-literate misogynist who hates movies “where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females”, because he “believe[s] in manliness”.
(via man boobz)

A more in-depth look at Nate Silver’s rather lackluster handling of climate science.
(via Manuel Moe Garcia)

Jason Wakefield at New Humanist explains why anti-gay-marriage arguments are always either covertly or overtly homophobic – if not just plain silly.
(via @rdfrs)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Scenes from the Prison State of America. Keep in mind that more than half were convicted of nonviolent offenses, in large part thanks to the Drug War.
(via @radleybalko)

Lawsuit: Santa Fe, NM cop Tasers 10-year-old boy who refused to clean his patrol car.
(via @radleybalko)

The only honest answer to whether global warming helped create Frankenstorm Sandy: “We don’t know, but it’s somewhat likely.”
(via @BadAstronomer)

And finally, have a marshmallow-loving fox:
(via @KyellGold)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, October 29, 2012 – Frankenstorm edition

Rev. John McTernan

Looks like we have a new Storm of the Century on our hands, though my area will escape the brunt of it. Be smart and stay safe, everyone.

I wonder if there’ll ever be a day when we look back and wonder why the hell we thought sponsoring educational institutions to encourage teenagers to destroy themselves for the public’s entertainment was okay.
(via Pharyngula)

Alternate headline: Religious fruitcake John McTernan ^[pictured] still thinks blaming gays for bad weather is à la mode.

And finally, here’s a dog with spaghetti (because why not):
(via @radleybalko)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Saturday, October 27, 2012

Andrew Messina

Interactive map shows details on every single drone strike in Pakistan under the Obama administration. One wonders how many “militants” were actually military-aged male civilians.
(via @ggreenwald)

Horrible: Cherokee County, GA parents call police asking for negotiator to help their suicidal 16-year-old son ^[pictured]. Cops arrive with a tank and a sniper, who then shoots and kills the boy. Parents maintain he never acted aggressively and are planning to sue.
(via @radleybalko)

It’s getting hard to maintain any respect for the good done by the Cato Institute when they go and pull bullshit stunts like this.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Thursday, October 11, 2012

Sally Ride

Bedford, Virginia-based Romney campaigner Clifford Russell offers a solution for welfare reform: Execute “illegitimate” parents and put their kids up for adoption. Adamantly not a poe.
(via Wonkette)

Scientists explain why global warming actually leads to more Antarctic ice. Again, folks: A warmer Earth means bigger fluctuations in both hot and cold extremes.
(via Media Matters for America)

Family Research Institute tries to blame legendary female astronaut Sally Ride’s ^[pictured] death from pancreatic cancer on her being a lesbian.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Edit (10/14/12 1:04 AM ET) – Corrected the FRI’s name (previously misidentified as Family Research Council).

Politicians censor inconvenient global warming facts

Those climate scientists are such an inconvenient bunch. There they go, predicting how climate shifts will inevitably cause sea levels to rise, leading to coastal flooding across several U.S. states with grave human and economic implications, with no care at all about how this news affects people and their corporate overlords.

Well, thankfully, politicians are doing something about it. Not about global warming or its effects, that is – about those loudmouth scientists:

Like-minded legislators and state officials in Texas, Virginia and North Carolina — states with their own coastal vulnerabilities — have shown Florida just how to deal with such annoyances. They erase offending words and passages. They made it flat out illegal for state planners and zoning officials to refer to nettlesome scientific findings that might hurt coastal property values.

Last year the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which had commissioned a scientific study of Galveston Bay, excised references to rising sea levels. “You can debate climate warming, but sea level is going up; it’s measured globally, with satellites,” the study’s lead author, John Anderson of Rice University, told reporters. “For them to be so bold as to remove it — they actually omitted whole sentences that mentioned sea level rise.”

Now, one might ask: Why? Why go to such blatantly dishonest lengths to deny the actual science in favor of dwelling in a fantasy world? Well, as a government flack made it quite clear:

A spokesman shrugged off the criticism, noting that the commission had paid for the study (albeit with public funds): “We have the right to make sure it reflects our views.”

As always, I love it when they take all that annoying guesswork and presumption out of it and just flat out lay their ideologically motivated denialism on the table for all to see. “The science says we’re wrong, so fuck science.”

I wonder, though … shouldn’t a government outfit that commissions a study have some sort of a responsibility not to lie to the public whose own money was used to pay for it? Especially since, y’know, it’s about how their homes will eventually be destroyed by the very climate change lawmakers are trying so hard to pretend isn’t really happening.

(via @ClimateHotNews)

Edit (06/18/12 1:57 PM ET) – Rephrased “public when it’s their own money that was used” to “public whose own money was used” for clarity.

Tags: global warming • climate change • Climate Central • FAU Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions • Texas Commission on Environmental Quality • Texas • Virginia • North Carolina • Florida

Daily Blend: Monday, May 07, 2012

Anne Lenhart

Handicapped woman arrested over false fraud suspicions is latest victim in the war on prescription painkillers.
(via @radleybalko)

State Farm, drink giant Diageo and other sponsors start bleeding from the Heartland Institute after its ghoulish global-warming-denying billboard “experiment”.
(via @BadAstronomer & @BadAstronomer)

Your brain on Fox News: No, dinosaurs didn’t fart themselves into extinction.

Man dies some time after being victim of “unwanted cranial ammunition acquisition”.
(via The Agitator)

xkcd does college majors.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: painkillers • prescription painkillers • Anne Lenhart • CVS Pharmacy • pharmacies • Diageo • Heartland Institute • billboards • State Farm • sponsors • Global Warming • global warming denialism • PZ Myers • farts • flatulence • Fox News • sauropods • greenhouse gases • greenhouse effect • William Pace • Guinness World Records • xkcd • college • university • majors

Daily Blend: Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Pres. Hamid Karzai

Afghanistan President (and U.S. puppet) Hamid Karzai ^[pictured] endorses religious edict declaring that women are second-class citizens who shouldn’t go to school, work, or resist “Sharia-compliant” domestic abuse.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Republican-controlled Kentucky House Education Committee rejects anti-bullying bill over fears that it “had more to do with gay rights”, despite desperate pleas from parents of dead children.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Right Wing Watch trounces Bill Donohue’s “get tough on rape victims” schtick. You gotta love his “We don’t need altar boys” line.

Rick Santorum says wildly stupid thing, global warming denialism edition.
(via @jennifurret)

Star debunker James Randi begins an opinion column at Wired.com.
(via The Daily Grail)

Poor, poor man blogs his way through three hours of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
(via @todayspolitics)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Afghanistan • Hamid Karzai • women • misogyny • Taliban • Sharia law • Kentucky, USA • House Education Committee • H.B. 336 • Republicans • anti-bullying bill • Bill Donohue • Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests • SNAP • clerical child abuse • Rick Santorum • carbon dioxide • plants • global warming • greenhouse gases • James Randi • James Randi Educational Foundation • JREF • Wired.com • Wired Science • skeptics • Rush Limbaugh • The Rush Limbaugh Show • James Robinson

Daily Blend: Sunday, September 04, 2011

The Jefferson Bible

• North Carolina man thrown in jail for being unable to stand in court after cops broke his leg during wrongful arrest.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Mother blames daughter Pamela’s murder on accused killer being high on “bath salts”. New Jersey quickly passes Pamela’s Law banning “bath salts”. Now, tests show accused murderer had no “bath salts” in his system.

• Now, now, isn’t it just a sign that prayer does work – and that God has responded with “fuck off with your annoying prayers already”?

• Here’s one Bible ^[pictured] I might actually want to read.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Lynwood Artis • James Rollins • contempt of court • police brutality • wrongful arrest • wrongful conviction • New Jersey • bath salts • MDVP • Pamela's Law • William Parisio • Pamela Schmidt • Dianne Schmidt • Texas • Rick Perry • prayer • drought • Bible • Jefferson's Bible • Jesus Christ • Thomas Jefferson • Christianity

Arizonans outraged at weatherman’s use of Arabic word

This is why you shouldn’t mock ‘haboob’ [source]

When I hear the term ‘haboob’, my usual reaction is to ask for a dictionary. But, when some people hear the term for a sandstorm, the only thing their fevered brains jump to is “ARABS!”:

PHOENIX — The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.

The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way.

“I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?”

Diane Robinson of Wickenburg, Ariz., agreed, saying the state’s dust storms are unique and ought to be labeled as such.

“Excuse me, Mr. Weatherman!” she said in a letter to the editor. “Who gave you the right to use the word ‘haboob’ in describing our recent dust storm? While you may think there are similarities, don’t forget that in these parts our dust is mixed with the whoop of the Indian’s dance, the progression of the cattle herd and warning of the rattlesnake as it lifts its head to strike.”

I’m confused, though. If it’s so horrendous for them to hear words of Arabic origin, then why aren’t they also kvetching over such terms as “algebra, pajamas, khaki, coffee, giraffe, lemon, orange, mattress, zero, and alcohol”?

Oh, wait. They’re only against words that sound Arabic. Okay, then.

(via ThinkProgress)

Tags: Arizona • haboobs • sandstorms • racism