Month: February 2015

Categories
Climate Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP

Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Michael Mann/The Climate Wars

“The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: The Battle Continues”

SAVE THE DATE!
Friday, March 20, 2015 | 4:00-5:00 p.m. | The Lyric Theatre | Blacksburg, Virginia

The Interfaces of Global Change Program at Virginia Tech is proud to host Dr. Michael Mann for a science communication workshop and public lecture on Friday, March 20, 2015. Dr. Mann is an award-winning climate scientist and central figure in the political debate over climate change. His lecture at the Lyric Theatre will be followed by a brief Q&A session and book signing.

READ THE VT NEWS PRESS RELEASE HERE
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ABOUT

Dr. Michael E. Mann is a Distinguished Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC).

Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth’s climate system.

Dr. Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA’s outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2012 and was awarded the National Conservation Achievement Award for science by the National Wildlife Federation in 2013. He made Bloomberg News’ list of fifty most influential people in 2013. In 2014, he was named Highly Cited Researcher by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and received the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education. He is a Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.

Dr. Mann is author of more than 170 peer-reviewed and edited publications, and has published two books including Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming in 2008 and The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines in 2012. He is also a co-founder and avid contributor to the award-winning science website RealClimate.org. [hr_shadow]

THE LECTURE

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: The Battle Continues

Dr. Mann describes this lecture:

“A central figure in the controversy over human-caused climate change has been “The Hockey Stick,” a simple, easy-to-understand graph my colleagues and I constructed to depict changes in Earth’s temperature back to 1000 AD. The graph was featured in the high-profile “Summary for Policy Makers” of the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and it quickly became an icon in the debate over human-caused (“anthropogenic”) climate change. I tell the ongoing story behind the Hockey Stick, using it as a vehicle for exploring broader issues regarding the role of skepticism in science, the uneasy relationship between science and politics, and the dangers that arise when special economic interests and those who do their bidding attempt to skew the discourse over policy-relevant areas of science.  In short, I attempt to use the Hockey Stick to cut through the fog of disinformation that has been generated by the campaign to deny the reality of climate change. It is my intent, in so doing, to reveal the very real threat to our future that lies behind it.”

 

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Categories
Global Change News

SDAL Seminar: Global Change Initiatives at Virginia Tech

Emerging Collaborative Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Research and Training

Tue, Feb 24, 10:00am – 11:00am

William A. Hopkins, Ph.D. Director, The Global Change Center at Virginia Tech Director, Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Program

Dr. Hopkins will will visit the Social & Decision Analytics Laboratory to discuss the goals of the new Global Change Center at Virginia Tech and its associated Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program. These new programs are funded by the Fralin Life Science Institute and the Virginia Tech Graduate School, and currently include faculty participants from 6 Virginia Tech colleges. Dr. Hopkins seeks to identify ways to develop synergies and collaborations with individuals in the National Capitol Region.

Dr. Hopkins is a Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech. He is also the Director of the Global Change Center at Virginia Tech (The Fralin Life Science Institute) and Director of the Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Ph.D. Program (The Virginia Tech Graduate School). He holds additional Adjunct Professor appointments with the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology and the College of Pharmacy’s Interdisciplinary Toxicology Program where he is also a member of the UGA Graduate Faculty.

Dr. Hopkins’ research focuses on physiological ecology and wildlife ecotoxicology, addressing pressing questions in both basic and applied science. To date, he has published more than 165 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters on subjects pertaining to environmental stressors, pollution, and the physiological ecology of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and bats. His work is heavily cited in the scientific literature and he frequently provides input on important environmental issues to the media (e.g., 60 minutes, NPR, etc.) and to decision makers in Richmond, VA and Washington D.C.

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Categories
Climate Change News Opinion

Verbal Warming: Labels in the Climate Debate

From the New York Times:

by Justin Gillis

“The words are hurled around like epithets.

People who reject the findings of climate science are dismissed as “deniers” and “disinformers.” Those who accept the science are attacked as “alarmists” or “warmistas. “ The second term, evoking the Sandinista revolutionaries of Nicaragua, is perhaps meant to suggest that the science is part of some socialist plot.

In the long-running political battles over climate change, the fight about what to call the various factions has been going on for a long time. Recently, though, the issue has taken a turn, with a public appeal that has garnered 22,000 signatures and counting.

The petition asks the news media to abandon the most frequently used term for people who question climate science, “skeptics,” and call them “climate deniers” instead.

Climate scientists are among the most vocal critics of using the term “climate skeptic” to describe people who flatly reject their findings. They point out that skepticism is the very foundation of the scientific method. The modern consensus about the risks of climate change, they say, is based on evidence that has piled up over the course of decades and has been subjected to critical scrutiny every step of the way.

Drop into any climate science convention, in fact, and you will hear vigorous debate about the details of the latest studies. While they may disagree over the fine points, those researchers are virtually unanimous in warning that society is running extraordinary risks by continuing to pump huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

In other words, the climate scientists see themselves as the true skeptics, having arrived at a durable consensus about emissions simply because the evidence of risk has become overwhelming. And in this view, people who reject the evidence are phony skeptics, arguing their case by cherry-picking studies, manipulating data and refusing to weigh the evidence as a whole.

The petition asking the news media to drop the “climate skeptic” label began with Mark B. Boslough, a physicist in New Mexico who grew increasingly annoyed by the term over several years. The phrase is wrong, he said, because “these people do not embrace the scientific method.”

Dr. Boslough is active in a group called the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, which has long battled pseudoscience in all its forms. Late last year, he wrote a public letter on the issue, and dozens of scientists and science advocates associated with the committee quickly signed it. They include Bill Nye, of “Science Guy” fame, and Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist and best-selling author.

A climate advocacy organization, Forecast the Facts, picked up on the letter and turned it into a petition. Once the signatures reach 25,000, the group intends to present a formal request to major news organizations to alter their terminology.

All of which raises an obvious question: If not “skeptic,” what should the opponents of climate science be called?

As a first step, it helps to understand why they so vigorously denounce the science. The opposition is coming from a certain faction of the political right. Many of these conservatives understand that because greenhouse emissions are caused by virtually every economic activity of modern society, they are likely to be reduced only by extensive government intervention in the market.

So casting doubt on the science is a way to ward off such regulation. This movement is mainly rooted in ideology, but much of the money to disseminate its writings comes from companies that profit from fossil fuels.

Despite their shared goal of opposing regulation, however, these opponents of climate science are not all of one mind in other respects, and thus no term really fits them all.

Read the entire article here.

Featured word cloud by woodleywonderworks

Categories
Climate Change Global Change News Opinion

Response to climate skeptics

By Bruce Hull

Organizations around the world are adapting to climate change, lending credibility to climate science. These organizations buy, study, and use the best available science to inform their multi-billion dollar decisions and strategies. They not only have access to all the science in the public domain, but have commissioned and kept confidential additional science that gives them competitive advantages. These organizations find climate science convincing enough to change business as usual. Behavior and investment are the ultimate indicators of being convinced.  From their behaviors, we can infer that these organizations calculated that climate is changing.

Conversations with skeptics can be challenging.  But an honest skeptic should admit that they have less capacity to understand climate science than do these organizations.  An honest skeptic should admit that brutally logical analysis of best available information motivates these organizations.  An honest skeptic should admit that these organizations are adapting to climate change.  An honest skeptic should therefore admit that predictions of climate change are reliable and valid enough to warrant additional meaningful responses.

Examples of how well-run, well-resourced, successful organizations are adapting to climate change include:

–       Veolia, the world’s largest water company, has put in place investments and operational changes responding to increased water scarcity and variability attributed to climate change

–       Multi-national insurance companies are canceling flood insurance, re-calibrating hurricane premiums, creating private fire protection services to for high value properties at risk from increased forest fires, and suing cities for not adequately adapting to a changing climate. [new references: insurance companies ;General Mills Policy on Climate]

–       Monsanto and other global agriculture corporations are finding ways to profit from climate change by providing information about changing growing conditions, developing new crops that thrive in changed climate, and diversifying risk caused by less predictable weather. Wineries are relocating or changing grape varieties because warming temperatures make delicate grapes harder to grow and change their taste.

–       Deutsche Bank, Schroeder, and other multinational investment firms are creating climate change investment funds that profit from a changed climate, such as purchasing farms in Canada and Russia that will become more productive and water resources that become more scarce as temperatures rise.

–       Water utilities are looking for new ways to provide adequate water when the 100-year drought happens much more frequently.

–       The US Department of Defense identifies social unrest and resource uncertainty resulting from a changing climate to be one of the key threats to national security.

All these actions can be categorized as climate adaptation, not mitigation.  Mitigation is much harder because it involves collaboration and coordination across many actors.  Adaptation is a calculated response to opportunities and risks forecast by climate science.  If the science is convincing enough to motivate adaptation, skeptics should stand out of the way of mitigation efforts, which have been calculated to be much less costly than adaptation to business profits and human progress.

 

About the Author:

Bruce HullR Bruce Hull, For Resources; 2010 XCaliber Award for Excellence.. is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability and a professor in the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation. He is also a faculty member in the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP.

This post was originally published on Dr. Hull’s blog, Constructing Sustainability.

 

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Categories
GSO Interfaces of Global Change IGEP News Seminars, Workshops, Lectures Special Events

IGC students meet with AAAS Fellows

The fellows in the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP met today with Dr. Jimmy O’Dea, a 2014-15 AAAS Science & Engineering Congressional Fellow for U.S. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Dr. Julia Mundy, an AAAS fellow in the U.S. Department of Education.

The group met at Fralin Life Science Institute to discuss how to effectively communicate science in order to impact policy, and how to increase awareness of global change research.

Jennifer Wagner, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation and an IGC Fellow, listed a few “take home messages” that came out of this informative roundtable discussion:

  • Don’t be afraid to talk about your science and communicate interesting findings from your research. There is a real need to engage early and often with the public and policy makers.
  • Finding innovative and effective ways to communicate with a wider audience will have huge ramifications in the future. We need to push ourselves to be better science communicators in all formats, even though we often feel overloaded with actually “doing science”.
  • There are many paths that Ph.D’s can take after academia. If we want to explore other options and be part of the policy discussion, there are avenues available for us that include these goals.
Categories
Accolades News

Dr. Deborah Brosnan named to the Irish Education 100

Congratulations to Dr. Deborah Brosnan, who was selected by a distinguished set of Irish peers to join an elite group of individuals recognized for their efforts in support of higher education and learning in the USA.

Deborah Brosnan“We celebrate and honor the latest generation of Irish educators and supporters of education who today provide such incredible teaching and advice to generations of students. The Irish in essence played a huge role in the education system of the United States. There is nothing more important, something the Irish from the Famine era on down recognized. We are immensely proud to present the 2014 Irish Eduction 100 whose members continue to uphold the proud tradition passed down by their ancestors”   -Niall O’Dowd, Founding Publisher Irish Voice

For more information, see page 11 at: Irish Education 100