A planet with a worsening gas problem

posted by Sniderman

[Cross-posted on The 2 Dollar Bill]

It may not be a doomsday prediction yet, but it's not great news.

CARBON SINKS AREN'T KEEPING UP
We've all heard about the climate models predictions, but lately... new data suggests that the models might be painting a rosy picture. In a paper [pdf] released by the National Academy of Sciences this past Thursday, researchers say that

what's going on now in the real world is surpassing the assumptions of the climate models...

... and that economic activity is still becoming more carbon-intensive. Since 2000, carbon output per dollar of productivity has been increasing by 0.3% per year, whereas during the previous 30 years, it was dropping by an average of 1.3% per year. The result, the team discovered, is that atmospheric carbon concentrations are now increasing by 1.93 parts per million each year--the fastest rate of buildup since monitoring activities began in 1959 and considerably higher than the 1.58-ppm average for the 1980s and the 1.49 ppm for the 1990s.

THIS REALLY SINKS!
So carbon sinks may not be keeping up with civilization's carbon production.


What's a carbon sink? Something that uses Carbon Dioxide--CO₂... and removes it from the atmosphere. There are plenty of natural carbon sinks. The oceans and plants (photosynthesis) take CO₂ and in exchange yield Oxygen. But those natural sinks are only able to handle a certain capacity of carbon at any given time.

And by these scientists' estimates, the planet's oceans are not keeping up as they once were. The process isn't a fast reaction... it occurs on the order of hundreds of thousands of years according to Harvard Magazine. In other words, it doesn't seem like something that could be quickly turned around.

And that's our problem and likely our fault. Nearly 75% of the planet is covered in water... yet the 25% (less than that inhabitable) with people and our machines is pumping out increasingly greater CO₂ emissions, methane and fluorocarbons .

WHAT'S WATER GOT TO DO WITH IT?
How does that translate into a warmer planet? Florida State University oceanographer Jeff Chanton says,

"the same heat trapping gases that are warming the Earth are also driving up the temperature of the ocean. About half of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, keeping the Earth from getting too hot.

But rising greenhouse gas emissions, combined with the loss of trees — a key absorber of carbon dioxide —due to deforestation, places more of a burden on the ocean. Just as more carbon in the atmosphere means that we feel the heat, more carbon in the water means a warmer ocean."

While we sense the weather while we live on land, weather patterns are controlled in large part by ocean circulations. And ocean temperatures.

We know that the planet's climate has been warming slowly for the past century or so... and especially within a more recent time window.

We know that human civilization's output of CO₂, methane, and types of fluorocarbons has increased. For this reason, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) says human activity as the biggest contributor to global warming.

STILL EDITING THE EXPERT REPORTS
All this... while the Bush Administration encouraged edits to the CDC's health report on the effects of global warming. Dr. Julie Gerberding of the Center for Disease Control created a 14-page report on human health consequences based on IPCC data. That report was edited to 6 pages... leaving out all references of health concerns brought by global warming.

The censored pages included

how extreme weather events such as floods and hurricanes will cause deaths, large-scale population displacement and contamination of drinking water. Other concerns included how increases in temperatures encourage the formation of ground level ozone, the primary ingredient of smog which can cause permanent lung damage and aggravate chronic lung diseases, such as asthma.

And now, there's strong belief that the global warming train has left the station. (Unless you're Senator Inhofe (R-OK) who can't see the train at platform 9¾).

Let's hope we can still meet up with the train at the next platform.

There's more: "A planet with a worsening gas problem" >>

Liberal Group Calls For Free Market Solution

By now you have heard of the fake news story Drudge pushed this morning about the alleged conversation "the other day" between Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton about a legislative fix for talk radio.

Apparently Senator James Inhofe, R-Ok made a comment on a the Breithart Show which quickly spread all over the media. Finally, after Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton denied the truth of this claim, Inhofe told Neil Cavuto that the comment had been made about three years ago. The story is completely debunked by the videos posted at TPM Election Central.

At the height of this little "scandal" Jack Tapper over at ABC News Political Punch demonstrating that he has no business calling himself a professional journalist, made the following comment in an apparent effort to imply some sort of "liberal plot":

I'm still waiting for comment from Clinton's and Boxer's offices….but this comes on the heels of a new study by a liberal group that claims that in Spring 2007 "of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative."

I followed the link to a new joint study by the Center for American Progress and the Free Press entitled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Sorry Jack, that is a joint study by two groups. Both claim to be non-partisan.

Here is what the study found.

Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week.

As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:

Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.

Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative
talk as progressive talk.

A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

This dynamic is repeated over and over again no matter how the data is analyzed, whether one looks at the number of stations, number of hours, power of stations, or the number of programs. While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast.

The findings are not very surprising. Anybody living in a city other than New York, Chicago or LA will tell you that if you want progressive radio you have to pick up a web feed.

It looks like our intrepid reporter found what he wanted in the second sentence of the first page. If he had gone to the next page he would have found a discussion of why talk radio is dominated by conservatives. First, the study recognizes that

The two most frequently cited reasons are the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 and simple consumer demand.

If you watch the Cavuto video you will encounter both. The authors conclude, however, that neither explains the dominance of right wing talk radio.

Instead they suggest the data reveals that "ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance." Quantitative analysis of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations establishes that that stations owned by women, minorities, or most importantly, local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows. The study further found that:

In contrast, stations controlled by group owners—those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market—were statistically more likely to air conservative talk. Furthermore, markets that aired both conservative and progressive programming were statistically less concentrated than the markets that aired only one type of programming and were more likely to be the markets that had female- and minority-owned stations.

The disparities between conservative and progressive programming reflect the absence of localism in American radio markets. This shortfall results from the consolidation of ownership in radio stations and the corresponding dominance of syndicated programming operating in economies of scale that do not match the local needs of all communities.

The study concludes that any effort to encourage more responsive and balanced radio programming will first require steps to increase localism and diversify radio station ownership to better meet local and community needs. The authors suggest three ways to accomplish this:

1. Restore local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations.

2. Ensure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

3. Require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest
obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

In short, what the "liberal group" recommends is more competition, especially local competition. If the airwaves are dominated by five or six media giants all run by five or six very conservative white men everybody will listen to the same stuff those conservative white men want them to hear. More owners means more decision makers. More decision makers means more opportunity for progressive talk radio.

UPDATE: Ed Schultz agrees with me.

There's more: "Liberal Group Calls For Free Market Solution" >>