On Friday morning, at approximately 7:25 AM, day will break over the small Pennsylvanian town of Punxsutawney, and the world's most famous groundhog (envied by many rivals) will be called upon to make his yearly prognostication. Yet if Phil's great charge were retrospection, he would see his shadow just about as well as Bush saw WMDs in Iraq. (Remember the rubric: shadow = more winter; no shadow = spring is coming.)
[Insert cute, public domain closeup of Punxsutawney Phil here.]
That is because, save Denver, the first part of winter seemed more like a mere shadow in many parts of the country. Of course, far be it sensible to cite only a pushover half of one winter as proof of global warming (although in Pat Robertson's case, we'll take it), but far be it necessary as well, because much stronger evidence is available:
- every year since 1992 has been warmer than 1992;
- the ten hottest years on record occurred in the last 15;
- every year since 1976 has been warmer than 1976;
- the 20 hottest years on record occurred in the last 25;
- every year since 1956 has been warmer than 1956; and
- every year since 1917 has been warmer than 1917.
Ever increasingly, the public is seeing the light of global warming research and how the connection between our greenhouse gas emissions and the occurrence and future threat of climatic and meteorological disasters is begging us to take dedicated and substantial steps now to decrease their likelihood. In similar terms, we need to Step It Up.
Which brings me back to shadows, for they, unfortunately, have obscured some of that light, and I don't mean cute groundhog shadows. I mean a coordinated cavalry of shadows commanded by a few corporations and think tanks (exxonsecrets.org website down) and a few pundits and politicians (like Jim Inhofe taking on the dual roles of both shadow puppeteer and puppet). If you haven't lived the last few years in shadow, you know this is happening. But a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Atmosphere of Pressure: Political Interference in Federal Climate Science, uncovers the extent of it.
Out of concern that inappropriate political interference and media favoritism are compromising federal climate science, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) undertook independent investigations of federal climate science. UCS mailed a questionnaire to more than 1,600 climate scientists at seven federal agencies to gauge the extent to which politics was playing a role in scientists' research....
[snip]
At the same time, GAP conducted 40 in-depth interviews with federal climate scientists and other officials and analyzed thousands of pages of government documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and inside sources, regarding agency media policies and congressional communications.
These two complementary investigations arrived at similar conclusions regarding the state of federal climate research: while scientists hold a high regard for the quality of federal climate change research, there is broad interference in communicating scientific results.
The report shows that Jim Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, is not alone. In fact, it now takes a whole periodic table to catalogue all the politically-motivated meddling in communicating scientific findings to the public.
Which is really bad, because, God forbid, petty politics can actually have dire consequences in real life. Living, breathing, loving humans live in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and New Orleans. Remember that, oh shadow casters. They would like to try to enjoy life and pursue happiness without the presence or increased threat of flood-and-hurricane, drought, and hurricane-and-flood, respectively. In the short and long runs, is a little bit of profitability really worth the sustained ignorance of the severity of global warming? Of course not. I hate to break it to you, but your shadows actually affect the state of the world. Negatively, we can reasonably conclude.
Fortunately, the rhetorical chunks of ice from which global warming skeptics cast their shadows are melting more and more every day (like, unfortunately, the real chunks of ice upon which polar bears depend for food.) One wonders how the skeptics will react this weekend, because Phil won't be the only one prognosticatin' on Friday. (In fact, Dunkirk Dave would be quick to interject that Phil won't even be the only groundhog prognosticatin' on Friday.) That is the day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release the first part of its 4th Assessment Report.
The IPCC report due out on Friday is likely to contain stronger wording than its previous assessment, in 2001, on the likelihood that human activities are principally responsible for the climatic changes observed around the world. (BBC News)
There has been some uncertainty as to what extent of sea level rises the report will predict, but a recent announcement (see above link) by the World Glacier Monitoring Service that "[m]ountain glaciers are shrinking three times faster than they were in the 1980s" may have an effect on the wording.
So if Punxsutawney Phil or Dunkirk Dave or Shubenacadie Sam or Balzac Billie or Staten Island Chuck or -- you get the picture -- if any of our esteemed panel of rodent meteorologists sees his or her shadow and foreshadows (no pun intended) six more weeks of winter, it may be the only recourse left for climate skeptics. ("But Phil is correct 100% of the time," John Stossel could tell Fox and Friends. "But the groundhogs are American; that climate report is French," Glenn Beck could point out on his CNN show.)
Personally, I think it would be cool (albeit anti-climactic [albeit pro-climatic]) for Phil himself to present the final draft of the IPCC assessment to the anxious Punxsutawney crowd, and, by virtue of his fame, the American public at large. Who would listen to some boring UN spokesperson?
In lieu of that, we can use Friday's meteorological messages to spread the word about what each one of us can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions:
- Step It Up 2007 - April 14, 2007, save the date. It will be, by far, the world's largest collective rally on global warming. Individual rallies are springing up all around the country, 508 in 45 states, at the time I'm writing this.
- Smart Growth - A key to more sustainable cities
- Rethink our food system. Buy local, organic when and where you can. Visit OrangeClouds's Recipe for America and keep on the lookout for Vegetables of Mass Destruction diaries.
- Energize America.
- Join DKos Environmentalists (now at Google groups).