Guest essay by Bjørn Lomborg
Justin Gillis tells NPR how much sea levels will rise:
“experts believe sea levels will rise at least 3 feet in the next century, and that number could be as much as 6 feet.”
(91cm to 183cm, http://n.pr/ZOxRKF.)
The leaked upcoming UN Climate Panel report will likely increase its sea level rise estimates (leaked here: http://bit.ly/12ybRHI, the numbers are very similar to the new June leak of the summary for policy makers).
It estimates the average sea level rise over 95 years at 40-62cm (1.31-2.04ft, it is the average 1986-2005 till 2081-2100) Looking at the entirety of the likely ranges, the range could be as wide as 29-82cm (0.95-2.69ft).
So, Gillis tells us the one end of the spectrum is 3 feet and the highest 6 feet, while the the UN says 1 foot to 2.7 feet. His *lowest* estimate is higher than the *highest* of the UN Climate Panel’s new, higher estimate.
Yet, he justifies his numbers with “experts.” Justin Gillis seems to listen to an extremely skewed set of experts.
In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review, Justin Gillis has clearly indicated that he writes about climate because he wants to push for action:
“the more I learned [about climate], the more I thought to myself, “This is the biggest problem we have—bigger than global poverty. Why am I not working on it?” From there, the question was, how do I get myself into a position to work on the problem?”
As Roger Pielke Jr. has demonstrated going through this interview and many of Gillis’ other articles: “The notion of “working on the problem” is a fine ambition, but is clearly much more aligned with advocacy for action rather than reporting a beat. Rather than informing his readers Gillis is in the business of making an argument.” (http://bit.ly/1dcslMJ)
Justin Gillis last year wrote what Roger Pielke called “worst piece of reporting I’ve ever seen in the Times on climate change.”
It is worth reading Pielke’s takedown here: http://bit.ly/14s4jrq.
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Just to be clear, there are many good environmental journalists on New York Times. But this clear example of severely skewed information is not worthy of the Newspaper of Record.
‘Temperature Rising’: Will Climate Change Bring More Extreme Weather? : NPR
Given that the science is supposedly “settled”, how is it that two groups of experts can come up with such wildly different predictions?
A new word enters the English language, the ECOCHONDRIAC. This is a person who suffers from a
persistent, neurotic and often paranoid belief that all forms of human activity cause damage and
mortal danger to the environment, in defiance or wilful ignorance of evidence to the contrary (or
lack of supportive evidence in the affirmative). It originates from a malevolent dislike of
humanity in general and a desire to generate false environmental scares as a way of curtailing
all forms of human ecomonic, technological and cultural development and, ultimately, the human race itself.
This word is derived from the existing word HYPOCHONDRIAC. This means a person who constantly believes he or she is ill or about to become ill. One who has a false belief that he or she has a disease or abnormal condition.
Word story
Hypochondriac comes ultimately from the Greek word hypokhondria, which literally means “under the cartilage (of the breastbone).” In the late 16th century, when hypochondriac first entered the English language, it referred to the upper abdomen. The upper abdomen, it turns out, was thought to be the seat of melancholy at a time when the now-outdated medical theory of the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile [choler], and black bile [melancholy]) was accepted as a basis for legitimate health practice. In the 17th century, hypochondriac referred to people who suffered from “depression and melancholy without cause,” though we might suppose from the name of this malady that many depressed patients complained of abdominal pains, which otherwise went undiagnosed. It wasn’t until the 19th century that hypochondriac described someone who suffered “illness without a specific cause”. In this sense it is still widely used.
From the posted link to the Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie.
Wow, just goes to show that you cannot trust Public Relations and Media
Who’d ’ve thunk it?
The claim that sea levels will rise by 3-6 feet in the next century is a gross exaggeration of the past 20 year rise of about 3.2 mm/year[ or about a foot in a century]. Looks like they are starting to regurgitate similar false claims made 20 years ago that never materialized.