Miscellaneous Stuff

Miscellaneous:

• Some of the emails purportedly received by UAE climate scientist Phil Jones were released on this a site devoted to UK FOIs. Read them if you have a strong stomach.
  
  I'm having a little bit of trouble determining the provenance of this site (and by now have learned to be suspicious). Their "About" page isn't helpful, with no names attached to anything, and documentation on the document is nil (isn't there a cover letter?) Skeptical Science thinks they're legitimate. If so, this (and others like them) will be the legacy of climate denialism, and of those who push it. Update: Here are the supporting documents.
  
  
• This may be the saddest thing I've read in awhile: "Appalachia Turns on Itself," by Jason Howard. 2,000 miles of streams buried, 500 mountains destroyed...in one of the most beautiful areas of the world. And the people who live there are so desperate for jobs, so impaled, abused, and turned inside-out by decades of corporate mistreatment, that they are lashing out at anyone and everyone. Why is 350.org protesting the Alberta tar sands and the Keystone pipeline, and ignoring the deep bruise in America's backyard?
  
  
• Atmospheric CO2 levels are approaching 400 ppm (and have already reached that in the Arctic). Including other greenhouse gases, Katy Human at NOAA writes "the global atmosphere reached a CO2 equivalent concentration of 400 ppm in 1985; and 450 ppm in 2003." NOAA ought to put this number on a Web page and update it as new data comes in.
  
  But this is almost as good: a table of total greenhouse radiative forcing from all greenhouse gases. If you do the numbers, CO2-equivalent is now 470 ppm (for 2010).
  
  
• Corvallis Gazette-Times: [Oregon State University Vice President of University Relations and Marketing Steve Clark] "said [Nick] Drapela’s contract was among more than 100 such contracts across the university that were not renewed."
  
  
• This seems absurd, but The Guardian says, "A £1.5bn wind farm that could have powered almost 400,000 homes has been rejected by the government because it might kill 90 small birds a year." 10 million pounds were spent in three and a half years of planning.... The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change said "We want to see renewable energy projects developed because we recognise that climate change will have a greater impact on wildlife [than wind turbines]. But three farms would have been an unacceptable risk." There are always going to be undesirable side effects to the production of energy.
  
  
• I hope you read Paul Krugman's latest column: "Mitt's Gray Areas." Has the GOP noticed that their nominee for President is a man utterly without principles?