By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Climate campaigners seem to think they have a winner with this takedown of elected officials who reject global warming science, in which fake news reports talk of the turmoil and tragedy created by Hurricane Marco Rubio, Hurricane James Inhofe, Hurricane John Boehner and more.
The trouble is, the science on a connection between hurricanes and global warming is going in the opposite direction, if the near-final draft of next month’s climate science assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is any indication.
See a snapshot from that draft below.
IPCC
This chart is from a near-final draft of the forthcoming science assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Confidence that global warming is increasing intense tropical cyclone activity has dropped since the panel’s 2007 report (blue is the confidence level now; red the level in 2007). The climate panel stresses that drafts are not final. Click for a larger version.
The blue lettering in the statement of confidence levels is the current state of scientific knowledge (mostly drawn from the panel’s recent Extreme Events special report). The red lettering was language from the 2007 report. (Of course, as panel officials have stressed, drafts are “works in progress” until the report is approved by governments and formally released, but it’s rare to see substantive changes this late in the game.)
Sure, rising seas will make any storm surge worse. That’s about it in terms of making the case that tropical cyclone danger is rising in a human-heated world. The climate panel foresees fewer hurricanes, overall, but a rise in strength in those that do form. In the meantime, statistical analysis by federal climate scientists points to a decline in the number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States since the mid 1800s.
Not that this matters, I guess. As with the “No Pressure” video in Britain in 2010 — in which a school teacher explodes the brains of kids who don’t agree to cut their carbon dioxide emissions — this one is getting lots of views.
Is it accomplishing anything other than energizing partisans (right and left) and further alienating disengaged citizens who might otherwise be allies (and providing big checks to the public-relations hot shots who made it)?
I doubt it.
But that’s probably irrelevant.
This campaign is not aimed at the mushy middle. When you explore the Web site of the sponsoring organization, 350 Action (a political nonprofit separate from 350.org), you see a mission statement that starts here:
350 Action works to empower a dynamic activist movement in the United States….
I’m sure the video and related campaign won’t hurt. The problem is that the sentence ends with these words:
…to fight for the solutions to the climate crisis that science and justice demand.
Perhaps they’d be better off just dropping that science part of the sentence? (Here’s the group’s lawyerly and selective take on the facts.)
I’d be happy to engage Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait — a scientist — on why he thinks “this isn’t such a bad idea.”
I’d be happy to be proved wrong on the strategy, by the way.
Those seeking no change in America’s energy choices and norms are irresponsible for many reasons. Those seeking to cut funding for agencies that help clarify climate trends and gird against climate hazards are, as well.
My prediction is that this approach, however well intended, will end up serving the “rope-a-dope” strategy of stasists. For a reminder of what that’s like, listen to Muhammad Ali:
I’m sure some will ask, so what’s my strategy, if I think this approach is so bad?
It’s less a strategy than an orientation. Go here and here for glimpses.
via 'Hurricane Marco Rubio' – A Winning Climate Campaign? – NYTimes.com.
