Sunday, April 15, 2018



Climate change is taking beaches away?

To prophecy that global warming will raise sea levels at some time in the future would be consistent with Warmist theory.  But the article below says that we are ALREADY losing beaches due to climate change.  Evidence?  They offer none.  They note that some South-East Asian beaches have been closed but admit that this is due to overuse and pollution by tourists.  Their claim is completely empty propaganda and nothing more. Thailand's beach management is not a climate thing. And climate change is not a human activity thing


Climate change is taking beaches away from humans — in a physical way, as rising seas erode them, and in the way humans interact with them, as several governments have closed beaches to visitors to limit further damage.

Just this week, the Thai government announced that it was closing one of its most famous beaches for four months out of the year. Its rationale? To allow nearby coral reefs to recover from the effect of millions of visitors, which range from pollution to physical destruction from boats and human hands. And as the ocean grows warmer, stressed coral ecosystems like these recover more slowly from these intrusions.

Several other Southeast Asian islands have done the same, closing off beaches to allow their marine inhabitants to recover with some peace and quiet.

Thailand's Maya Bay, a white sand beach with turquoise water ringed by mountains. This is one of many beaches being closed thanks to climate change.

I know: this sucks. And that’s fair — many people think of beaches as a universal public right. But beaches are also bigger than you and your summer plans.

Organisms in, above, and next to the water dwell there, even if you don’t see (or eat) them. Without beaches, most of these animals would lose their homes, risking extinction.

If you live near the ocean, you can thank beaches for keeping your water drinkable and keeping your house where it is. Beaches and sand dune ecosystems are a vital barrier between the powerful seawater and shore-based ecosystems. They also stop salty ocean water from leaching into fresh groundwater.

Protective closures like the ones in Southeast Asia also mean tens of thousands of jobs could be lost, many in developing countries that rely on tourism to survive, as The Outline reports.

Southeast Asia may seem far away, but the problem is global, and happening faster than you might expect. Without human intervention, up to two thirds of beaches in Southern California will disappear from erosion within the next century, a 2017 U.S. Geologic Survey study found.

By 2100, sea levels may rise between 0.2 and 2 meters (0.66 to 6.6 feet), depending on how much the Earth warms. That could swallow the majority of beaches worldwide.

Banning beaches is disappointing for humans. But it might be worth giving up a chill place to sunbathe and sip out of coconuts to save an ecosystem.

SOURCE 





70+ Papers: Holocene Sea Levels 2 Meters Higher – Today’s Sea Level Change Indistinguishable From Noise

More than 70 recent scientific publications show that there is absolutely nothing unusual about the magnitude and rapidity of today’s sea level changes. These academically peer-reviewed papers show that sea levels were on average 2 meters higher earlier in the Holocene than they are today.

Before the advent of the industrial revolution in the late 18th to early 19th centuries, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations hovered between 260 to 280 parts per million (ppm).

Within the last century, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen dramatically.  Just recently they eclipsed 400 ppm.

Scientists like Dr. James Hansen have concluded that pre-industrial CO2 levels were climatically ideal.  Though less optimal, atmospheric CO2 concentrations up to 350 ppm have been characterized as climatically “safe”.  However, CO2 concentrations above 350 ppm are thought to be dangerous to the Earth system.  It is believed that such “high” concentrations could lead to rapid warming, glacier and ice sheet melt, and a harrowing sea level rise of 10 feet within 50 years.

To reach those catastrophic levels (10 feet within 50 years) predicted by proponents of sea level rise alarmism, the current “anthropogenic” change rate of +0.14 of a centimeter per year (since 1958) will need to immediately explode into +6.1 centimeters  per year.  The likelihood of this happening is remote, especially considering Greenland and Antarctica combined only contributed a grand total of 1.54 cm since 1958 (Frederiske et al., 2018).

Are Modern ‘Anthropogenic’ Sea Levels Rising At An Unprecedented Rate?  No.

Despite the surge in CO2 concentrations since 1900, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that global sea levels only rose by an average of 1.7 mm/yr during the entire 1901-2010 period, which is a rate of just 0.17 of a meter per century.

During the 1958 to 2014 period, when CO2 emissions rose dramatically, a recent analysis revealed that the rate of sea level rise slowed to between 1.3 mm/yr to 1.5 mm/yr, or just 0.14 of a meter per century.

Much more HERE  (See the original for links, graphics etc.)




Easter Island Is Eroding – The New York Times

NICKNAMED “The Gray Lady“, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”.

IN March the paper launched a series called Warming Planet, Vanishing Heritage which examines “how climate change is erasing cultural identity around the world.” The series based on a UN “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate“ report, designed to push the fashionable theme that your lifestyle is causing imminent danger to ancient monuments by dangerous sea-level rise and other climatic horrors.

Nicholas Casey, a New York Times correspondent based in Colombia, and Josh Haner, a Times photographer, traveled 2,200 miles to Easter Island in, I assume, a glider powered by trained albatrosses, to see how the “ocean is erasing the island’s monuments”.

BEING the “newspaper of record”, the rest of the sycophant mainstream media and activist affiliates followed suit and covered the story…

THE New York Times’ motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. However, it seems the actual “science” related to Easter Islands rate of sea-level rise wasn’t “fit to print”!

NOT hard to see why…

NOAA has 40 years of SLR data from 1970-2010 showing an indistinguishable sea-level rise of 0.33 millimetres/year. Equivalent to a change of 1.32 inches in 100 years:


Sea Level Trends – Easter Island E, Chile – NOAA Tides & Currents

THE islands monuments and coastline may be suffering from that natural thing called ‘erosion’ which happens when waves pound a coastline over eons. But, a sea-level rise rate of 1.32 inches over 100 years cannot possibly be causing anything other than inconvenient data for the fake news media to omit at all costs.

ASTONISHING and ultimately deceptive that not a single reporter in any of these articles bothered to check this most basic determinant of the islands “imminent danger” to the oceans – the rate of sea level rise at Easter Island.

ANOTHER classic case of “Omission Bias”. The most insidious form of propaganda, in my opinion.

HOW many other stories on “climate change” are manipulated to give you only the side that fits the catastrophic man-made climate change narrative?

SADLY, the mainstream media has become a costly megaphone for the extreme eco-activist movement, further damaging the reputation of “science”. This example another classic reason why the climate-theory obsessed mainstream media cannot be trusted on anything climate change. Even if they did want to report the truth with actual “science” and real-world data, they would struggle, as too many jobs and reputations are now at stake.

WHO are the real science “deniers”?

SOURCE 





Steyerville: New Website Blames Tom Steyer for Killing Towns of American Heartland

A new website aims to add “Steyerville” to the political lexicon as a term for once thriving communities that had their livelihoods stripped away thanks to efforts of environmentalist groups backed by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer.

The website, Steyerville.com, was launched on Thursday by Power the Future, a nonprofit dedicated to giving a voice to men and women working in the energy industry who it says are often drowned out by loud activist voices backed by Steyer’s billions.

It labels places such as Boone County in West Virginia, where unemployment has doubled and 10 percent of the population moved away in just six years, as the home of Steyervilles.

The story laid out by the group is that Boone County was thriving because of the coal industry, which in 2010 employed 3,894 of its residents.

Then came the Sierra Club, an environmentalist group backed by Steyer’s millions, which targeted the county’s coal mines with environmental lawsuits and pushed them toward bankruptcy.

Not only were coal jobs lost—by 2015 coal employment in the county was down from 3,894 to 1,492—but budget cuts were made because of lost revenue. In 2016, Boone County announced that three elementary schools were closing permanently and 60 teachers were being laid off. “What was once a thriving community became a Steyerville,” the site explains.

Daniel Turner, the group’s executive director, says the goal of the site is to hold Steyer accountable for what he is doing to these towns.

“We started Steyerville to demonstrate the danger the eco-left poses to rural communities,” Turner explained. “These were great small towns, but their industry was offensive to Steyer’s politics.”

“Steyer’s activism has consequences, and it’s visible in these towns,” Turner said. “Every shuttered store, every closed school, every multigenerational family that separates because mom and dad lost their job: This is all on his hands. We will make him own it.”

The group argues that it is easy for Steyer to ignore the impact his activism has on these communities because he will likely never visit them or even be able to locate them on a map. “It’s easy to show indifference to a community you’ve never met,” the site explains.

“Steyerville is not in the Hamptons, not in South Beach, not in Aspen. Steyerville is in states people don’t often visit, in locations that don’t attract the rich and powerful outside of campaign season. And because they are out of sight, they are out of mind.”

“We made Steyerville to put these communities—literally and figuratively—on the map,” it says. “The site is well researched and documented, and will continue to grow to highlight the damage Tom Steyer is doing to rural America.”

Steyerville currently highlights communities in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but it plans to expand the map.

“We are starting in these three states, but plan to expand nationwide,” Turner explained. “New York, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, Louisiana all have Steyervilles: towns where Steyer pays activists to prevent the energy industry from operating.”

Turner also said the group plans to geo-target areas Steyer visits with ads for the Steyerville site.

“As Steyer goes around the country to expand his political reach, we plan on running ads warning the locals: Don’t listen to him,” he said. “Looks at what he’s done to communities when he gets his way.”

Steyer has announced a series of events across the country as he pushes to make willingness to impeach President Donald Trump an issue in Democratic primaries.

SOURCE 




Polar Bears And The Sleazy New York Times

SPOTLIGHT: Journalistic professionalism evaporates in front of our eyes.

BIG PICTURE: When historians document the demise of the mainstream media, an article published this week by the New York Times will make an excellent case study.

Titled “Climate Change Denialists Say Polar Bears Are Fine. Scientists Are Pushing Back,” it’s written by Erica Goode who isn’t just any journalist. She’s a former Environment Editor of the Times.

In 2009, she “founded and led a cluster of reporters dedicated to environmental reporting.” Currently, she’s a visiting professor at Syracuse University.

Out here in the real world, a debate exists about polar bears. Will they be adversely affected by climate change or will they continue to adapt as they have historically?

Since the future hasn’t yet arrived, it’s impossible to know whose opinions will turn out to be correct. But rather than presenting a range of perspectives to her readers, Goode takes sides.

Apparently clairvoyant, she knows that experts concerned about the long-term prospects of polar bears are correct. She knows that dissenting voices are wrong. No other possibility is conceivable within the confines of her exceedingly narrow mind.

She doesn’t tell us that researchers with significant academic records and decades of experience can be found on both sides of this question. Instead, in the first sentence of her article, Goode negates all possibility that a legitimate debate might be in progress.

Climate “denialists,” she declares, are “capitalizing” on the iconic status of polar bears “to spread doubts about the threat of global warming.”

Goode knows the dissenters are playing politics. She knows their motives are profane. With a wave of her hand, she thus relieves herself of the obligation to take seriously these alternative viewpoints.

People who think polar bears are currently doing well – a separate question from how they might fare in the future – are similarly labeled “climate denialists” by Goode in paragraph four.

Individuals on the other side of the fence, meanwhile, are portrayed as “real experts” and “mainstream scientists.”

Last November, a shocking paper was published online. It has now appeared in the print edition of the journal BioScience. Titled “Internet Blogs, Polar Bears, and Climate Change Denial by Proxy,” the PDF version fills five pages of text, followed by two pages of references. This is an assault by a gang of 14 authors on an individual scholar.

The target is Susan Crockford, a Canadian zoologist and adjunct professor with more than 35 years experience in her field. As the author of PolarBearScience.com, Crockford performs a public service.

She encourages us to look past activist spin and media hype. Not everything we’re told about polar bears, she says, rests on a solid foundation.

While it’s appropriate for these 14 people to challenge Crockford’s assertions, their tone is anything but scholarly. This is five pages of name-calling. PolarBearScience.com is labeled a “denier blog” at the outset.

So are online venues that cite Crockford’s work. The term ‘denial’ is used 9 times. ‘Denier’ 18 times. ‘Deniers’ 12 times.

The entire exercise is brazenly political. This paper sends a message to everyone else: think twice before departing from the polar bear party line. Our ugly gang of bullies will come looking for you next.

How does Goode present these events? Is 14 against one viewed as a tad unsporting? Does anyone in her article express astonishment that a naked political screed somehow got published in a peer-reviewed academic journal? Is free inquiry lauded? The importance of vigorous scientific debate championed?

I’m afraid not. She’s an extension of the gang, you see. Smugly certain that Crockford is a ‘climate denier,’ Goode considers this female scholar in a male-dominated field unworthy not only of a hearing but of empathy, as well.

According to Goode, the 14 are mere “scientists banding together against climate change denial.” She quotes Michael Oppenheimer: “Some climate scientists basically have had enough of being punching bags.” VoilĂ , the victim is transformed into an aggressor who deserves what she got.

Goode tells us Oppenheimer is “a professor of geoscience and international affairs” at Princeton. She fails to mention that he spent two decades cashing paycheques at the overtly activist Environmental Defense Fund. This man isn’t impartial. He has a flashing neon sign of an agenda.

In the world inhabited by Goode, polar bear dissenters are dismissed out-of-hand because she knows they’re politically motivated. But orchestrated political behavior by a gang of 14 is OK. And scientists affiliated with organizations that lobby for political change aren’t reliable commentators.

Rather than inform its readers in a fair-handed manner, the Times this week became a mouthpiece for one side in a scientific debate. Erica Goode chose to be the prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner in the case of Susan Crockford.

She sided not with the brave dissident, but with the numerous and the powerful. Crockford wasn’t merely assaulted in BioScience, her assault was justified and amplified in the pages of the Times. By another woman.

TOP TAKEAWAY: Environmental reporting at the New York Times is a disgrace.

SOURCE 


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For more postings from me, see  DISSECTING LEFTISM, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. Home Pages are   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  

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