Uncouth Scary Headline of the Day
Goes to Grist for this bit of scareploitation:
Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like
UPDATE: Tom Yulsman calls the Grist article “yellow journalism.” Kenneth Green at AEI calls it “shameless.” Many commenters at Grist–not trolls, but seemingly regular Grist readers–also find the piece offensive.
UPDATE 2: In response (in the comment thread below), Christopher Mims, the author of the article, notes that he has changed the headline and updated his piece to reflect Yulsman’s “valid critique.”
Brutal.
And I thought, “at least they can’t attribute earthquakes to global warming” (or as they say nowadays, climate change).
Silly me.
I’m pretty sure Joe Romm already did that.
I swear I had a thought that some idiot would say that. But then I decided that even idiots must be able to control themselves in the face of the tragedy of such an enormous proportion. My mistake.
Attribute earthquakes to CAGW…already been done.
supposedly, As the glaciers melt, they reduce stress on the tech plate, which causes major earthquakes.
And this was said with a straight face.
Is there ANY type of a natural disaster that has not yet been “shown” to be caused by CAGW?
Volcano eruption?
It’s not completely wrong for relatively small events. Increased precipitation increases seismisity, melting glaciers cause isostatic rebound and hot and humid conditions in California west of the Central Valley is called Earthquake weather.
Do you have any idea about time scale of isostatic rebound?
As a geologist, I cannot believe the hyperbole of the Grist headline. It is absolutely mind-boggling that someone would connect this tragedy in anyway with climate change. Yes, very fast melting glaciers or ice-caps could lead to an increase in earthquakes – in the immediate vicinity of the the rapidly melting glaciers due to isostatic rebound. In addition, major ice calfing events can cause earthquakes. This is not in dispute.
However, the impact of modest climate change on subduction zone-based earth quakes is total bs. Subduction zone-based earthquakes are not driven by the barely preceptable changes in pressure of the overlying ocean, but by the enormous mass of cooling oceanic crustal slab dropping beneath less dense continental crust. Even assuming that the entire ~20cm sea level rise over the 20th century was due to anthropogenic causes, the percent change in water pressure in these deep oceanic trenches is on the order of 2 to 3/one thousandths of a percent. To make any connection between such large scale plae tectonic events and climate change is irresponsible reporting
There’s an update now with an apology ‘to those whom I mislead with the headline’.
Here we have yet another greenie site trying to capitalize on the Japan tragedy. They even voice approval of the Grist article.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/03/climate-change-earthquakes-tsunamis-alarmism.php
Hi Keith – I’ve updated the piece in response to Tom’s critique, which I thought was entirely valid. Here’s a repost of the comment I left on CEJournal:
Tom: I appreciate your not pulling any punches. Of all the critiques of this piece, I thought yours was the most dead-on. I’ve updated the piece fairly extensively in response to your objections; unfortunately I think it’s still a bit of a band-aid. I’m not sure what more I can do that will be productive for the discussion it has raised.
I’ll spare you what I think are the lessons for me as a writer and skip to the larger issue, which is that, as you imply, climate science in particular is an area in which it’s important to take it slow and get it right. I, for, one, will be heeding that advice.
I’ve posted McGuire’s very interesting paper “Potential for a hazardous geospheric response to projected future climate changes” here, for anyone who is interested in finding out about the relationship between climate change and the geosphere:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/460/2317.full.pdf
Christopher, thanks for the update, which I’ve duly noted in the body of the post.
I truly enjoyed Tom Yulsman’s comments and learned that having a story would be like the Golden rule of journalism.
I feel that this other story got to be mentioned here. At Keith’s second favorite blog, John Fleck tells the story of his take-downs of George Will’s 2009 “global cooling” column:
> I did it in my own newspaper with glee, and the Washington Post news-side people actually wrote a news story correcting Will’s errors made on the op-ed page. Plus the Times, and my favorite science writer Carl Zimmer piling on.
And to top it all:
http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/?p=3418
As long as a new story like that lightens up each of the remaining saturday mornings of my life, I really don’t mind if that’s an exception.
I’ve gotten to this late enough that I’ve only read the edited version of the Chrisopher Mims story. As it is, it is now kind of chopped up and stilted, a band aid is a fairly apt description.
It seems to me that he could have avoided a whole lot of difficulties for himself had he only paid more attention to what Andrew Freedman was apparently trying to tell him back on this thread: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2011/02/25/navigating-a-climate-minefield/ (I’m assuming that the comment with the same name is by him).
I’ll give Christopher Mims credit for willingness to learn at this point in time. He does seem to have a sense of moral duty, (as expressed in his apparent original comment above). I think that part of that duty is a need for him to go back to the Treehugger article, which quotes from his original article, and to attempt to make some clarifications as to his current understanding.
Then, I think that Chrisopher Mims just might be a great person to write a bridging article addressed primarily at Grist and Treehugger and their audiences. Such an article would research what those organizations are trying to communicate, what it is that bothers other people about the way those venues sometimes present climate change issues, and ultimately, what mechanisms can be used to approach the public to be most effective.
I would assume that some of the people who have raised concerns about his article and others that have contributed here, would be willing to serve as resources, provided that Christopher Mims were able to convince them that he would present their input in a manner meeting the highest standards of journalism.
AGW’s role in the the recent Wisconson unrest?
AGW’s role in the the recent Wisconson unrest?
Since you asked:
1. Abnormally cold air is pushed into the Dallas area owning to a strong arctic oscillation. The cold weather favours the Green Bay Packers who subsequently win Superbowl 45.
2. The subsequent beer fueled elation which while fun at the time eventually turns to a collective hangover of significant proportions with all the attendant irritability that hangovers entail.
3. This irritability subsequently fans the flames of civil unrest.
So as you can plainly see: Wisconsin unrest is what climate change looks like.
Sashka: I don’t think there is good data on the rates of rise initial elastic rebound stage which is much quicker than the viscous rebound stage that many areas are still in from the last deglaciation. We also don’t know if this produced earthquakes in any seismically active zones. I would not be surprised if a catastrophic failure of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet caused local earthquakes and perhaps even increased local volcanism.
I think Menth (17) just won the thread.
@ 17
Not sure what you mean by initial. Not like any glaciers are going to disappear overnight. For all I can guess the response is viscous all the way.
I wonder if those outraged by anyone considering the possibility of earthquakes being triggered by the effects of anthropgenic climate change would like to spare some of thier vitriol for Piers Corbyn, who is blaming it on the sun?
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=325&c=5
Heraclitus – I am intrigued by your attempt at constructing an equivalence there. Are you suggesting that Corbyn is trying “to bludgeon people into believing that they’d better do something about” what’s happening on the Sun?
Shall we expect ancient Mayan rituals in Borough High St in London?
Menth – I have been asking since last July for a way to link the decadal increase in average bra size, and climate change. Could you please assist? thanks!
Maurizio, no I’m suggesting that he is using it to support his pet theory that the sun is responsible for everything that happens to climate and that we therefore don’t need to do anything about carbon emissions – and incidentally his own commercial interests that rely on people believing that he has some unique insight into weather events.
@Maurizio (23)
LOL!
Heraclitus:
‘we therefore don’t need to do anything about carbon emissions’
No, we don’t – it’s not an issue.
It’s hard to get outraged by somebody asking you to do nothing at all
Maurizio, you know I don’t think I have come across a pithier expression of the fundamental problem we face than that.
Maurizio, it is well known that the availability of copious milk for babies increases human size. Cows flourish in good weather. QED