Yesterday was August 28th 2012. Remember that date. It marks the day when the world went raving mad.

Three things of note happened. The first is that a record Arctic ice melt had just been announced by the scientists studying the region. The 2012 figure has not only beaten the previous record, established in 2007. It has beaten it three weeks before the sea ice is likely to reach its minimum extent. It reveals that global climate breakdown is proceeding more rapidly than most climate scientists expected. But you could be forgiven for missing it, as it scarcely made the news at all.
 
Instead, in the UK, the headlines concentrated on the call by Tim Yeo, chair of the parliamentary energy and climate change committee, for a third runway at Heathrow. This sparked a lively debate in and beyond the media about where Britain's new runways and airports should be built. The question of whether they should be built scarcely arose. Just as rare was any connection between the shocking news from the Arctic and this determination to increase our emissions of greenhouse gases.
 
I wonder whether we could be seeing a form of reactive denial at work: people proving to themselves that there cannot be a problem if they can continue to discuss the issues in these terms.

The third event was that the Republican party in the United States began its national convention in Tampa, Florida – a day late. Why? Because of the anticipated severity of hurricane Isaac, which reached the US last night.

As Kevin Trenberth of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, noted earlier this year:
"Basic theory, climate model simulations, and empirical evidence all confirm that warmer climates, owing to increased water vapor, lead to more intense precipitation events even when the total annual precipitation is reduced slightly … all weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be."

(h/t: Joe Romm at Climate Progress)
 
The Republican party's leading lights either deny climate change altogether, or argue that people can adapt to whatever a changed climate may bring, so there's nothing to worry about.

The deluge of reality has had no impact on the party's determination to wish the physical world away. As Salon.com points out, most of the major figures lined up to speak at the convention deny that man-made climate change is happening.
 
When your children ask how and why it all went so wrong, point them to yesterday's date, and explain that the world is not led by rational people. 

pseudo catastrophic climate change science' reputation is in tatters is why there is not much talk of it.

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.

Are you suggesting we can't be trusted with the facts. How very patronising of you, cods.

MOTR wrote on Aug 31^st, 2012 at 7:01am:





well having watched the PANIC BUTTON pushing back in 2008 when Al Gore and Bob Brown told us the world will end in 2013 if we dont do something yesterday...



remember Copenhagen...the only thing that came out of Copenhagen was more meetings for the chosen few in exotic places...like Cancun and Durban...to talk about what??? thats right GW.. not solve it mind you...as these people are not scientists....

but anyway what flying all over the world got to do with human caused GW.. ???


has it occurred to you that the ice melting is perfectly normal...it happens every zillion years..

like volcanoes erupting. earth quakes..even hurricanes..its all a mystery that Mother Nature is responsible for..


you can rush around pretending you have the power to stop the ice melting if you like... me I will just keep on doing what I always do..and try not to live in fear thanks.