A new paper finds that our journalists are constantly hedging on a scientifically settled issue- considerable more so than reporters in Spain by Chris Mooney on June 3, 2014

It’s no secret that different countries have different densities, so to speak, of global warming denial. In particular, English-language speaking nations like the US and the UK tend to be relative denialist hotbeds, and their media include a considerable amount of global warming skepticism. By contrast, media researchers have found that in Spanish-speaking countries like Mexico and Chile, as well as in European nations, journalists tend to cast much less doubt on climate research.

And now, a new paper captures the US media’s relative discomfort with climate science in a new way: By comparing the preponderance of words that suggest scientific uncertainty about climate change in two US newspapers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, with the concentration in two Spanish ones, El País and El Mundo. The study, by Adriana Bailey and two colleagues at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is just out in the journal Environmental Communication. It finds a considerably greater concentration of such uncertainty-evoking words in the US papers in their 2001 and 2007 coverage of two newly released reports from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The study used a technique of linguistic analysis that involved examining newspaper articles for “epistemic markers,” defined as “any words or expressions suggesting room for doubt” about climate science. Read more…

Roger Pielke Jr. in May 27th Dot Earth Blog

Americans’ Varied Views of ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Climate Change’ by Andrew Revkin

Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, has distributed a note summarizing the findings of “What’s In A Name? Global Warming vs Climate Change,” an interesting new study of Americans’ perceptions of the two dominant shorthand phrases used to describe the building human influence on the climate system.

“Global warming” clearly better captures the essence of the issue, across a wide range of societal sectors, according to the report.

Of course, there are continual calls for other names, from James Lovelock’s “global heating” to John Holdren’s “global climate disruption.” And another oldie, of course, is “the greenhouse effect.”

But we’re pretty much stuck with the two dominant phrases.

Global warming should dominate for other reasons. As Roger A. Pielke, Jr., has pointed out for a decade, “climate change” has proved problematic in a more technical sense — with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change defining the term differently, in ways that have significant ramifications in treaty negotiations. (The climate panel definition includes both human-driven and natural change; the treaty process only deals with climate change driven by the buildup of greenhouse gases.) Read more…

Roger Pielke Jr. was quoted in May 29th Climate Collective

The triumph of climate pragmatism
by Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus

For the better part of two decades, a small group of policy scholars and climate policy advocates have argued that the United Nations’ climate treaty efforts were doomed. Caps on emissions, and other efforts that make fossil fuels more expensive, would fail in world where competitive alternative fuels don’t exist, and where billions of people need to consume more, not less, energy. As such, the recent call by former senators Tim Wirth and Tom Daschle to abandon binding emissions limits, and instead to embrace technology innovation to make clean energy cheap, can be fairly described as the triumph of climate pragmatism.

But it wasn’t until the collapse of United Nations talks in Copenhagen in 2009 that mainstream environmental leaders and policymakers started taking the criticism seriously. Now, two close environmental and liberal allies of President Obama, former senators Tim Wirth and Tom Daschle, have called for the whole treaty framework of mandatory emissions limits to be scrapped. In a long essay for the widely-respected environmental magazine, Yale Environment 360, they argue that the Kyoto climate treaty framework

“depends on national governments, whose first responsibility is to their own people and well-being. For that reason, the climate negotiations have faltered. Nations could not agree on who is to blame, on how to allocate emissions, or on projections for the future.” Read  more…

Roger Pielke Jr. was quoted in May 29th Newswatch

Upcoming EPA Power Plant Rule Stirs speculation
by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is just days away from the release of its first-ever proposed rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. The rule will push states to cut pollution primarily from coal-fired generators. As many await details of the rule, The New York Times reports that sources familiar with proposal suggest that it will call for a 20 percent reduction.

One new study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was skeptical of the regulation, slated for release on June 2, finding that they would cost the economy $51 billion a year in lost investments. The Chamber further suggests that the rule could diminish coal-fired generation, which currently represents 40 percent of electricity generation in the country, by one third.

In a blog post, the EPA disputed the Chamber of Commerce findings.

“The chamber’s report is nothing more than irresponsible speculation based on guesses of what our draft proposal will be,” wrote Tom Reynolds, associate administrator for external affairs. “Just to be clear—it’s not out yet. I strongly suggest that folks read the proposal before they cry the sky is falling.” Read More...

Roger Pielke Jr. was quoted in May 30th artemis.bm

As hurricane season approaches, cat bond market shows its appetite by Artemis

The catastrophe bond market continues to show its appetite to take on peak peril risks such as U.S., and especially Florida, tropical storm and hurricane risks, with over $4.1 billion of 2014 cat bond issuance having some exposure to hurricane season.

The 2014 Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane season is set to officially begin on the 1st of June, the start of a long season that runs to the end of November. As a peril or risk that is assumed by global reinsurers and the insurance linked securities market, hurricane risk remains the number one threat to reinsurer, and ILS manager, profitability and the largest single exposure for most players in these markets.  Read more..

Washington Post, May 30th 2014. Photo by Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen.

Atlantic hurricane season begins Sunday: Will record streak without major hurricane landfall end? By Brian McNoldy.

After a six-month break, hurricane season is here again. It is expected to be a relatively quiet season, but that does not mean we should let down our guard; just a single landfall at a vulnerable location can be a major disaster.

Some very lucky years

The U.S. has been extraordinarily fortunate lately: we have not been witness to the fury of a major hurricane (category 3 or higher) landfall since October 2005 when Wilma hit southwest Florida as a Category 3 storm. (Other countries have not had such good fortune these past few years.)  Read More…

CSTPR’s Roger Pielke, Jr. quoted in a May 14th USA Today article:

Will this be the year the USA’s luck runs out?

With the Atlantic hurricane season starting June 1, the nation is enjoying two record streaks for a lack of hurricanes: It’s been nine years since the last hit from a “major” hurricane and also nine years since a hurricane of any sort hit Florida, traditionally the most hurricane-prone state in the nation.

Both streaks began on Oct. 24, 2005, when Category 3 Hurricane Wilma slammed into southwest Florida with 120-mph winds.

A “major” hurricane is a Category 3, 4, or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale of Hurricane Intensity; the minimum wind speed for a major hurricane is 111 mph.

“This is the longest period on record with no major hurricane landfalls since 1878, when reliable landfall records began,” says Colorado State University meteorologist and hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach.

Despite its fury, Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy, was a Category 1 hurricane, with maximum winds of 80 mph, when it made landfall in October 2012 in New Jersey. Sandy is a good example of how wind speed can be an inadequate measure of a hurricane’s ferocity.

Sandy killed dozens of people and did $65 billion damage in the USA. alone, the National Climatic Data Center reported.

Hurricane Ike battered the Texas coast in 2008, killing at least 112 people and doing $27 billion in damage, but it missed the “major” hurricane label by 1 mph when it slammed ashore with winds of 110 mph.

One explanation for the hiatus in major hurricanes: “Luck, and it will run out,” says Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

ACCUWEATHER FORECAST: Quiet hurricane season predicted

“Luck has certainly played a role,” agrees Klotzbach. Also, steering currents have helped guide storms out to sea, he says.

“We have tended to have a trough of low pressure along the East Coast of the U.S. during the past eight years, which has helped steer storms away from the mainland,” said Klotzbach.

Florida’s nine-year hurricane-free streak is also notable for the state that sticks out into the hurricane zone like a sore thumb: Since 1851, 114 hurricanes have hit Florida, according to data from the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. This is 39% of the total number of U.S. hurricane strikes.

“These remarkable streaks must end sometime.” noted Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado,

“We need to be prepared that this would be the year that both streaks end,” added Feltgen. Read more…