donsutherland1

The link to the full response by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes can be found here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abbe82 It is abundantly clear what the ExxonMobil Vice President is seeking to do. Hopefully, in the future, ExxonMobil, among others, will have to pay full cost for their externalities (greenhouse gas pollution) and face legal exposure for deliberately misleading the public and investors. There should be no de facto “too big to be held liable” for fraud exemption.

No. The latest 100 degree reading was October 27, 2016.

Yesterday, Arctic sea ice extent on JAXA was 4.929 million square kilometers. That is the latest Arctic sea ice extent has been below 5 million square kilometers. The previous record of October 14 was set just last year.

In what represents a major breakthrough in American political discourse and offers a sign that climate change denial is waning in influence, climate change will be a featured part of next week’s Presidential debate. The Washington Post reported: As scientists predict that 2020 will be the hottest year on record, climate change will be among the six topics that will be the focus of next week’s debate between President Trump and his Democratic rival, former vice president Joe Biden, according to the Commission on Presidential Debates. The 15 minutes set aside for the segment will mark the most amount of time President Trump will have been questioned about climate change during his presidency as well as the most time devoted to the topic in a presidential debate. Kristen Welker of NBC News, the moderator for the Oct. 22 event in Nashville, also plans questions about the coronavirus, national security, race, leadership and “American families,” the commission said.

Today, Phoenix reached 102°. That extended 2020's record of 100°+ days to 145. The old record was 143 days, which was set in 1989. In addition, today's temperature surpassed the daily record for October 16. That record was 101°, which was set in 1991.

September had a global monthly anomaly of +1.00 degrees C on the GISS dataset. That smashed the record warm September monthly anomaly of +0.93 degrees C, which was set just last year.

Phoenix Sets New Annual Record for 100° Days Today, the temperature rose to 100° at Phoenix, making today the the 144th time this year that the temperature has risen to at least 100°. In addition to tying the daily record of 100° set in 1973 and tied in 2010 and 2015, that established a new record for most days with high temperatures of 100° or higher during a calendar year. Since 1896, Phoenix has had only 7 years during which the temperature reached 100° or above on 120 or more days. Table 1: Most 100° or Above Days during a Calendar Year However, on account of anthropogenic climate change and, to a lesser extent, urbanization, the number of annual 100° days has been increasing. Table 2: 30-Year Moving Average of 100° or Above Days Through October 14, the monthly counts for 100° days are: April: 5 days May: 16 days June: 26 days July: 30 days August: 31 days September: 25 days October: 11 days Total: 144 days Earliest 100° temperature: April 26, 2020 102° Highest temperature: 118°, July 30, 2020 Table 3: Progression of the Records for 100°+, 105°+, 110°+, and 115°+ Days Of those 100° or above temperatures, 27 either tied or broke daily records: 12 set new daily records and 15 tied daily records. Among those records, were August-tying and October-tying monthly records. Table 4: 100° or Above Temperatures that Tied or Set Daily Records:

Phoenix has now reached 100 degrees for a record 144th day. In addition, today’s 100 degree reading ties the daily record high set in 1973 and tied in 2010 and 2015.

I suspect that as climate change progresses, insurers will increasingly drop coverage in high-risk areas and the case for federal support to cover damages in those areas will be questioned. Some form of limited "buy outs" might be provided as an alternative to such support.

Marine Heatwaves also have an adverse impact on ocean ecosystems. One example: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/massive-marine-heat-wave-blob-unprecedented-seabird-die-off

At 5 pm EDT (2 pm PDT), Phoenix had reached 100 degrees. That tied the record of 143 days on which the temperature reached 100 degrees or above, which was set in 1989.

For perspective, atmospheric CO2 over the past 10,000 years:

Lengthening growing seasons:

New research published by the National Bureau of Economics (NBER) indicated that rising sea levels are beginning to hinder home sales in vulnerable coastal regions. Put another way, markets are not denying the reality of climate change or one of its major adverse impacts. Abstract: In this paper, we explore dynamic changes in the capitalization of sea level rise (SLR) risk in housing and mortgage markets. Our results suggest a disconnect in coastal Florida real estate: From 2013-2018, home sales volumes in the most-SLR-exposed communities declined 16-20% relative to less-SLR-exposed areas, even as their sale prices grew in lockstep. Between 2018-2020, however, relative prices in these at-risk markets finally declined by roughly 5% from their peak. Lender behavior cannot reconcile these patterns, as we show that both all-cash and mortgage-financed purchases have similarly contracted, with little evidence of increases in loan denial or securitization. We propose a demand-side explanation for our findings where prospective buyers have become more pessimistic about climate change risk than prospective sellers. The lead-lag relationship between transaction volumes and prices in SLR-exposed markets is consistent with dynamics at the peak of prior real estate bubbles. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27930

If that were the only such report, one could argue that it is an outlier. However, it is not the only such report. A peer-reviewed study: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/8/4211

That pales in comparison to the threat posed by climate change. https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees

The scientific profession defines its own standards. Quality involves study design, research questions, methods of research, evidence related to the research questions, etc. Today, AGW is to climate science what Evolution is to biology. That’s based on the evidence that has been gathered.

I don’t know of any serious policy proposals that would seek an abrupt shift. All, even AOC’s “Green New Deal,” which is more than just climate legislation, have a transition. Technology sharing will almost certainly be part of any effective coordinated multilateral approach in a shift toward renewable energy. Moreover, just as has been the case with prior technologies, there will likely be significant improvements in renewable energy technologies in coming years.

Quality research would get published. Claims that lack evidence would not.

He provided a chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that shows the production costs per megawatt hour. Of course, that’s a financial not economic cost perspective. Fossil fuel financial costs don’t consider externalities, the costs of which are borne by society. That leads to an understatement of such costs from a full cost perspective. Once those costs are considered, the advantage for renewables is even larger.

I accept that the climate scientists have gained sufficient understanding of what is happening (observed warming) and its dominant cause (greenhouse gases) to reach valid conclusions. The literature is very explicit about uncertainties where they exist (feedbacks, etc.). The debate isn’t “over,” because scientists have arbitrarily said it is over. It is over, because no scientifically-valid alternative to AGW has been advanced in the literature. Objections have been empty—not backed by literature. At the same time, understanding of the role greenhouse gases are playing has increased and the expected warming has materialized. Should credible scientific research emerge, I have to reason to believe climate scientists, like their peers in other scientific fields, would not examine that data with the kind of open-mindedness that is a hallmark of science. Unfortunately, those who reject AGW refuse to look at the now overwhelming body of evidence in favor of AGW with that kind of open-mindedness. They simply dismiss AGW or minimize its consequences without having any body of credible research to back their objections.

No. That’s an extraordinary claim I cannot accept. Those who reject AGW as the explanation for the most recent ongoing climate change have no credible evidence to undercut AGW. They cannot dismiss the rising greenhouse gas forcing and its impact without overturning the laws of physics and the basic properties of carbon dioxide and methane. They cannot counter the reality that natural forcings alone—solar and volcanic—would have produced slight cooling in recent decades, not the dramatic warming that has occurred. Without sufficient and credible evidence to support anti-AGW arguments, there is no alternative scientific case. There is only an alternative belief. Nothing more. Beliefs are not science. One either believes something or one doesn’t. No evidence, facts, or logic are necessary to sustain beliefs. The claim that science is “corrupted” is an attempt to evade the reality that there is no credible scientific case against AGW. That science and scientists will not embrace the largely unfounded beliefs of those who wish to avoid the scientific conclusion concerning climate change that has been drawn from an overwhelming and still growing body of evidence does not make science “corrupted.” Quite frankly, that line of attack on science has no merit. It seeks to demean science as a profession. It seeks to discredit the enormous number of people in all scientific fields who have devoted their lives to pushing the frontiers of human knowledge and whose efforts have made possible much of the progress that humanity has achieved from applications of that knowledge.

The scientific literature disagrees. Here is the abstract from one recent paper: Climate change may be a major threat to biodiversity in the next 100 years. Although there has been important work on mechanisms of decline in some species, it generally remains unclear which changes in climate actually cause extinctions, and how many species will likely be lost. Here, we identify the specific changes in climate that are associated with the widespread local extinctions that have already occurred. We then use this information to predict the extent of future biodiversity loss and to identify which processes may forestall extinction. We used data from surveys of 538 plant and animal species over time, 44% of which have already had local extinctions at one or more sites. We found that locations with local extinctions had larger and faster changes in hottest yearly temperatures than those without. Surprisingly, sites with local extinctions had significantly smaller changes in mean annual temperatures, despite the widespread use of mean annual temperatures as proxies for overall climate change. Based on their past rates of dispersal, we estimate that 57–70% of these 538 species will not disperse quickly enough to avoid extinction. However, we show that niche shifts appear to be far more important for avoiding extinction than dispersal, although most studies focus only on dispersal. Specifically, considering both dispersal and niche shifts, we project that only 16–30% of these 538 species may go extinct by 2070. Overall, our results help identify the specific climatic changes that cause extinction and the processes that may help species to survive. https://www.pnas.org/content/117/8/4211

There is a lot of merit to that Planck quote. Fortunately, at least as far as climate science is concerned, the science has triumphed. No credible opposition to AGW remains. From the sidelines, there continues to be noisy objections—most of it from those who have no background in climate science and a vanquished few who proved unable to build a credible alternative scientific case—but the literature reflects the reality that AGW is the dominant cause of contemporary climate change. Uncertainties in various areas e.g., feedbacks, persist, but the overarching idea about the causation of contemporary climate change has been established. Where inroads remain to be made is on the policy front. At present large carbon emitters are permitted to dump their emissions into the climate system with impunity. Their products are underpriced, as the costs of their emissions are isolated from their cost structures and instead incurred by society. They also receive billions of dollars in subsidies that incentivize increases in such pollution. Thus, market function is actually impaired by these distortions and shifts toward cleaner energy are impeded. That will likely gradually begin to change. But once the Millennials and Generation Z, whose life exposure to climate change is far greater than that for preceding generations, gain political clout, much more rapid change is likely. Opinion surveys show that they do not view the fossil fuel industry as sufficiently sacrosanct that it must be held immune to the costs and consequences of its emissions. The worldview that seems to arise out of the polling is the idea that society isn’t built around industry, but that industry is part of society. With that comes responsibilities to society. That’s where the issue of externalities (carbon pollution in this case) arises. Under the former mindset, it’s accepted (and acceptable by industry advocates) that the costs of externalities be borne by society. In the latter, all costs, including those associated with externalities, should be borne by those responsible. In a way, even as the language appears absent from what I have read about the rising younger generations, this amounts to a rediscovery of the old idea of individual responsibility.

One plausible explanation is status quo bias. Bias for the status quo, with which people are familiar, can impede rational judgment about choices. In status quo bias, perceptions of risk are disconnected from objective factors and are skewed in favor of the present state of affairs. Change from the status quo is seen as inherently risky. Thus, when it comes to cost-benefit analysis, the benefits of the present are overstated while the costs of some new state are exaggerated. Therefore, even when the status quo is unsustainable and costly—as is the case with fossil fuels and the impact of resulting greenhouse gas emissions—and an alternative state offers more long-term benefits (reduction of the discounted future costs of climate change), the status quo is embraced. This bias impairs judgment, nourishes motivated reasoning (which reinforces preferences for the status quo), and contributes to the common phenomenon where companies and societies often fail to make necessary changes until a crisis has erupted.