Below is a screencap of the “walkback” story headline in the LATimes posted late today.
This morning, about 5:30AM, I sent a short but succinct letter to the Editor of the Los Angeles Times (reproduced below) regarding the statements made yesterday by California Governor Jerry Brown saying that the LAX and SFO airports would “have to be moved” due to effects from posited sea level rise caused by melting of portions of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, some 200-800 years in the future. The claim by Governor Brown, was patently ridiculous and I wrote about it here: Governor ‘Moonbeam’ beclowns himself over sea level rise at LAX airport.
Brown’s statement on LAX and SFO airports really didn’t surprise me though, because at AGU 2013, I sat just a few feet away from him during a presentation by Dr. Richard Alley, who made some of the wildest claims on sea level rise I’ve ever seen. I took a photo then and wrote about the experience:
I wrote then:
I saw Penn State’s Richard Alley speak, and let me tell you, if you think Michael Mann is annoying, Alley’s certainly a close second. His presentation was simultaneously grating (he shouted a lot) and ridiculous, using bizarre metaphors like this one:
Worse, California governor Jerry Brown was in the audience and seemed to be quite taken with Alley’s brand of science and alarmism, particularly Alley’s depictions of San Francisco under water.
I shudder to think what sort of influence Alley’s rantings might have on the people of California via Brown.
Well, we found out yesterday.
Today, we get the walkback to sanity. The LATimes now says:
An aide to Jerry Brown confirmed Wednesday that the governor was wrong when he said global warming would eventually cause rising seawater to inundate Los Angeles International Airport.
…
But various sources say that the nation’s third-busiest airport — bordered by the Pacific Ocean — has elevations ranging from 108 feet to 126 feet and is protected by higher coastal bluffs on the west side.
“The governor misspoke about LAX,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the Brown administration.
Environmental officials for Los Angeles World Airports, the operator of LAX, said the airport has an elevation of more than 120 feet. “A 4-foot rise in sea level,” they said, “should have minimal impact on airport operations.”
One of those “various sources” was me, not only from my blog post yesterday, but also from this letter I sent early this morning:
=========================================================
Dear Editor,
A Times story on Governor Brown’s new budget had this title “Brown says rising sea levels could force costly move of LAX” with Brown citing two recent science papers on Antarctic melt saying “If that happens, the Los Angeles airport’s going to be underwater,”.
The science says otherwise. LAX airport elevation is 125 feet, the NOAA Los Angeles tide gauge rate of sea level rise 0.83 millimeter/year suggests that it will take over 40,000 years to reach the runways.
On the Amundsen Sea ice sheets in Antarctica melting, NASA in their press release on the paper said: “The region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet (1.2 meters).” They offer a worst case scenario of the entire West Antarctic sheet melting, stating 16 feet (5 meters). Neither scenario affects LAX.
Governor Brown would better serve the public by checking facts before offering baseless alarm.
Anthony Watts
Chico, CA
NOT PART OF THE ARTICLE – REFERENCES FOR THE EDITOR:
NOAA Tide gauge: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9410660
Elevation of LAX runways: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAX
NASA Press release on Antarctic Ice shelf melt http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/
======================================================
I didn’t get an acknowledgement from the editor, and given their “no denier” publication policy, I doubt my letter will run, even though it was entirely factual, because it made both the Governor and the LATimes look bad for not doing basic fact checking.
However, mid-day I did get a nice email from somebody on the other side of the climate debate, editor Douglas Fischer of the Daily Climate, thanking me for the “good catch” and telling me that I had the LA Times newsroom “scrambling…trying to explain how they let this slip through unchallenged”. He said they were going to put my story on the Daily Climate right next to the LATimes story, and they did (thanks Doug):
So, at least I have that satisfaction. I urge others to follow my lead: when ridiculous claims are made in the media, challenge them with supportable facts. You may not get an acknowledgment, but the desire to not look stupid is pretty strong, and will have an effect.
Never let science get in the way of alarmism! Good call Anthony!
Will LAX be open in 200-800 years anyway?
“Mis-spoke” Yep. Newspeak for “utterance from a standpoint of total ignorance”….but that wouldn’t sound too good. “Bold-faced BullSh*T” would sound even worse, despite it being EXACTLY that.
Sir you have beclowned yourself! Unclown yourself this instance!
That Tanya, is impossible for the center ring star of the “Circus” .
“The Governor misspoke about LAX”
which translates as
“The Governor told a bare-faced lie about LAX but we’re only going to correct it because he’s been found out”
Don’t worry, citizens of the US, you’re not alone in having politicians who can’t tell fact from fiction. Here in the UK we jail them eventually: take a bow, convicted criminal and proven liar, Chris Huhne, erstwhile Secretary of State for Energy and ‘Climate Change’.
Having said that, now he’s out and has a regular column in … well, guess which national newspaper? Yes, correct in one, it’s The Guardian.
Just another example – and there are so many – of populist politicians talking complete BS about so called climate change.
‘Save the World’ syndrome should become certifiable for politicians and the world would become a safer and a cheaper place in which to live.
Well done, Anthony. You’re inspirational.
If the Maldives aren’t worried about opening yet another new airport in 2012 then why should Los Angeles International Airport?
I suspect it’s because they have been conditioned NOT to question any climate claims and to actually stop doing a fundamental requirement of their journalistic profession – fact checking.
“The governor misspoke about LAX,” said Evan Westrup,…”
BS.
Moonbeam didn’t “misspoke” (misspeak). To misspeak means to incorrectly use a word or reference when your intention was different. For example Brown could have “misspoke” if he had said LAX, but meant to say it was SFO would drown, simply mixing up or confusing the two airports in his mind.
Brown clearly believed what he said at the time applied to the airports (LAX and SFO) that he cited as “threatened” by sea rise. So the Governor’s spokesman really lied to cover for his technically illiterate boss by using the word “misspoke”. What in reality the governor did was “make some crap up for sensational effect” based on the news release of the research he read and his obviously poor math reasoning skills. He thought what he said was true. He did not misspeak.
That portends badly for the guy who has to figure out California’s broken finances, as California has current debts topping $300Billion (over $234 Billion of which is public worker pensions) with no identified funding source.
It must be so hard for Evan Westrup to admit: “The governor was mistaken about LAX,”
It is nice to win one once in a while. I am glad that Anthony forced this retraction. (misspoke indeed)
The problem is that the mainstream media is all on-board with alarmist scaremongering and we are fighting people who “buy ink by the barrel” (need an updated saying there I guess). How do we get the facts out while the alarmists spread lies, misinformation, and delusions through a compliant mainstream media?
something else the Governor might like to explain to Americans wishing to see the economy get back on its feet:
14 May: Bloomberg: Coal Missing Boom as Climate Foes Clean Asia’s Backyard
By Lynn Doan and Mario Parker
Bowie Resource Partners LLC wanted to export coal from the port of Oakland,
California, promising thousands of construction jobs and a $3 million-a-year
payroll in a city whose unemployment rate was almost double the national
average.
Oakland’s response: No, thanks…
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups have scuttled three of six
coal terminals proposed in the U.S. Pacific Northwest that would have
shipped as much as 146 million metric tons annually to booming markets in
Asia…
Their new rallying cry: Not in your backyard.
“Climate change isn’t an intangible thing anymore –people are feeling it,”
Jess Dervin-Ackerman, an organizer with the Sierra Club who lives in
Oakland, said by phone May 12.”This has become about us enabling other
countries to do things that aren’t in the best interest of the planet.” …
China will keep importing coal and much of it will come from U.S. mines via
Canadian ports where companies including Westshore Terminals Ltd. and Ridley
Terminals Inc. are sendingas much as 3.76 million tons a month abroad.
Europe, where half of U.S. coal exports go, brought in 14.9 million tons in
the fourth quarter, up 4 percent from the prior three months…
China imported about 360 million tons last year and is expected to increase
its reliance on the fuel by 54 percent by 2035, according to a Feb. 27 ICF
International Inc. (ICFI) report. The country has 558 gigawatts of new
coal-fired power plant capacity in the works, the report shows. Its
benchmark price averaged 535yuan ($86) a ton as of May 11.
“Like it or not, the coal is here to stay for a long time to come,” Keisuke
Sadamori, the director for energy markets and security at the IEA, said in a
Jan. 29 presentation at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in
Washington…
“We can no longer take the impacts of these fossil-fuel developments in an
isolated way,” Cesia Kearns, a Sierra Club campaign representative who is
fighting coal exports from Oregon and Washington, said by phone May 12.
“This ties people together from different cities, different regions and even
across the Pacific Ocean, to our neighbors in India and China, who are all
standing up to Big Coal now.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-13/coal-missing-boom-as-climate-foes-clean-asia-s-backyard.html
Maldives President: SUCKERS! Send more money now – and your tourists. 😉 LOL.
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Isn’t it ironic that the screams of Warmists have actually increased the number of flying tourists, airports and hotels in the Maldives. I bet my bottom dollar the ‘co2 footprint’ for travel to and from the Maldives is up since November 2008. It’s all a big con, don’t fall for it.
I expect Anthonys letter was only one of many, although why they chose to publish his rathers than Manns, Trenberths, Jones, Cook , Nutticelli, all of whom I am sure complained about the anti-science being spouted by the good governor
Richard Treadgold says:
May 15, 2014 at 12:12 am
Well done, Anthony. You’re inspirational.
Seconded.
Governor Brown entered the state of California into what he referred to as an agreement between California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia regarding action to combat climate change.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_24406734/california-oregon-washington-and-british-columbia-sign-climate
So I contacted my congressman and senators and asked it the congress had granted the states involved a consent decree. All three said that no such consent decree existed.
Article 1 section 10 paragraph 3 of the United States constitution:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power…
Clearly the states entered into such an agreement without the consent of congress.
When I contacted the governor’s office I received a reply telling me that the prohibition has never been enforced. As if that means it’s acceptable to violate the constitution. The governor’s office has no intention of rescinding the unconstitutional agreement and essentially dared me to do something about it. As I do not have unlimited funds and a battery of attorneys who can keep the case from being delayed for 20 years, I guess there’s nothing I can do.
The biggest weakness of the US Constitution is that there is no way for the common man to enforce it. Since the government can essentially violate it with impunity, what’s the point of even having one?
Politicians!
Mis-speak be-clowned.
Gor! Shackspear would have loved it.
( I keep getting ” you are posting comments to quickly”. Urm no!)
However, should Governor Jerry Brown have powerful friends in the airport mover industry, profuse in their campaign spending, the precautionary principle may force him to initiate moving LAX &. SFO to even higher ground anyway. If nothing else, political science tells us that much with extremely high confidence.
It’s always amazing when the “Party of SCIENCE!” acknowledges that they in fact live in the land of hyperbole. It’d be interesting to interrogate them and discover how many really are true believers and how many know they are the keyholders to their little wind up army of minions. I’m thinking 5% or so are in on the gag and they know that ~60% believe them when they say “no breaking news stop! SeaWater has gone to US Army Mountaineering School and will climb hundreds of feet to undo civilization!”
The “no publish hate facts” in operations ostensibly dedicated to reporting fact is a brilliant cipher for why the United States is imploding and becoming a bigger joke on the world stage than it was in’77.
My British Columbia provincial government has told me that it is a non binding agreement.
While it is certainly true that the sea level rise from the collapse of the WAIS will not directly flood LAX the problem is that much of the access from the coast side will be affected, ie Lincoln Blvd.
But it is always a mistake to get information from politicians or media which have vested interests in different directions. For the least biased assessment stick to the science.
http://www.usc.edu/org/seagrant/research/SeaLevelRise_docs/hires_pdfs/City%20of%20LA%20SLR%20Vulnerability%20Study%20FINAL%20Summary%20Report%20Online%20Hyperlinks.pdf
garymount says:
May 15, 2014 at 2:45 am
My British Columbia provincial government has told me that it is a non binding agreement.
That will in all likelihood be cleaved to depending on the party identifiers involved with more dutiful solemnity than the NATO treaty.
It’s galling isn’t it you can’t call it a “conspiracy” b/c they are so brazen in their extralegal execution of their “faith” it is not cloaked, nor since it is not activity based on any conclusions arrived at via reason a course of action its adherents can be swayed from.
Canada is in many ways the canary in the coal mine for western civilization now, because despite its sometimes more overt periodic socialist bent it (unlike the United States) has always understood that wealth redistribution requires wealth to be created in the first place.
From the NASA link above:
“The defining characteristic of West Antarctica is that the majority of the ice sheet is “grounded” on a bed that lies below sea level.”
So only the ice ABOVE sea level of that ‘grounded ice’ will raise sea level when it melts. How much is that? Be aware 400,000 cubic kilometres of ice needs to melt to raise global sea by just 1 metre.
[snip . . O/T indeed. But interesting so why not put it up on Tips & Notes? . . thanks, mod]