Ian Gunsolley's blog

Hurricane Katrina, Snowmageddon, the Hottest Decade on Record ; more and more extreme weather events are capturing front page coverage of our news as Global Warming is taking center stage as a matter of national concern. Unfortunately it seems that the media is ill-prepared to inform an increasingly worried public, at least judging by the lack of understanding by journalists of even basic fundamentals of Climate Science. Whether it’s a NPR’s Science Writer telling a listener that Global Warming and Climate Change are the same thing (they’re not), or a New York Times reporter writing that there is a debate about Global Warming (there isn’t), journalists are as often hurting the public understanding of Climate Science as much as they are helping, if not more so. The result is that, even as the science gets better, recent polls show the public is growing less confident about the certainty of Global Warming rather than more.

 
With the Copenhagen Summit reaching the mid-point of its two week agenda, the media has been a buzz about one climate story; ClimateGate, while giving colder and uninformative news coverage to a bigger climate issue making its way through the climate-change summit called Climate Debt.
 

It is pretty hard to understand what is going on with our government these days. Our economic system is on the verge of collapse, the American People are clamoring for swift action, and while the President has outlined a plan for saving us the Congress is um... the Congress is, well… screwing up.
 
 

 When Barack Obama took office, there were not-so-quietly-whispered concerns that he would be tested as George Bush was on 9/11, and it was clearly implied that he wouldn’t be up to the challenge. Now that he is in office, some are waiting for the other shoe to drop and the attacks on our people to begin. What these critics need to realize that the attack on America that Obama must deal with has already happened; it’s was the last eight years of the Bush Presidency.

Recently, a tech blog I started frequenting prominently posted a story reporting the discovery of an error in the Climate Data used by James Hansen to conclude that October was the warmest in years. The comment section for the piece was filled with climate skeptics practically doing a jig and crowing about the “failure of climate science”. While most of the time I just roll my eyes and move on when I come across these folks, I have to admit that I was curious about why the seemingly science friendly tech audience would hold such strong views against climate change science.

The United States is in the throes of a historic economic conflagration that rivals any of the recent western wildfires. Old Growth industries are withering under the heat of the blaze, “close to the ground” small industry and business have flames licking their heels, and there are serious concerns about what will remain of our economy when the fire runs its course. In a healthy forest a fire is certainly destructive, but also clears the ground of choking underbrush allowing new growth to occur.

 I took a trip to the Bay Area last week for some much needed recreation. We love it there and stayed in a decent hotel about one block from the beach, looking forward to relaxing and exploring the city. My pleasure trip was brief however, as my attention turned to the historic financial meltdown that is gripping our nation.