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Scary and Gross - 3 Disturbing Consequences Of A Warming Planet
What do anthrax-riddled reindeer corpses, a pile of flaming horse manure, and thawing cold war waste at a top-secret military base in Greenland have in common? These are just three of the increasingly bizarre and disturbing impacts of a warming climate that made headlines this summer. Climate scientists like myself are always trying to anticipate the unexpected - but the full implications of a warming planet are starting to catch even us by surprise.

So what's going on? Let's start with the anthrax. Some 75 years ago, an anthrax outbreak swept across Siberia, killing around a million reindeer. Because the ground there is permafrost, those reindeer were buried in shallow mass graves across northern Russia. This summer has been an exceptionally warm one on the Yamal Peninsula, a piece of land that juts out into the Kara Sea north of the Arctic Circle. The mercury there hit 93 degrees in July, some 14 degrees above normal. During this heatwave, at least one of those reindeer corpses remerged from the thawing permafrost. The anthrax spores inside it proved viable, and sparked a new outbreak. To date, one person--a 12-year-old boy--has died, 72 people have been hospitalized, and at least 2,300 reindeer have perished.

"It sounds like an episode of Game of Thrones but in fact, it's another wake-up call that global warming is entering a new and disturbing phase," writes Hilary Bambrick, a bioanthropologist whose research focuses on the health impacts of climate change. Perhaps the worst part about this anthrax outbreak is it will likely reoccur as the permafrost keeps melting. And there are untold other viruses and bacteria locked in the permafrost, including smallpox. "We really don't know what's buried up there," Birgitta Evengard, a microbiologist at Umea University in Sweden, told NPR. "This is Pandora's box."

And the flaming horse poop? This July brought record-breaking heat to the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. In a town called Throop, in the Finger Lakes region of New York, residents began to notice a terrible, unexplained smell wafting their way. Residents complained to the state environmental agency, which determined that a pile of horse manure outside a stable in town had spontaneously combusted in the extremely hot and dry conditions. "It took three local fire departments more than two hours to extinguish the burning manure," the New York Department of Environmental Conservation said in a press release. Poop in Throop: you can't make this stuff up.

And the thawing top-secret military base? In 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tunneled into a glacier in northwest Greenland and built Camp Century, "the City Under Ice," which they claimed was an arctic research station. In reality it was a secret Cold War-era nuclear missile test site. It was abandoned eight years later, due to shifts in the glacier that made it structurally unsound, but the waste--including raw sewage, radioactive coolant, and PCBs--was left behind, beneath the ice. "They thought it would snow in perpetuity," Tom Colgan, a geography professor at York University in Toronto, told NPR. "The phrase they used was that the waste would be preserved for eternity by perpetually accumulating snow." However, thanks to climate change, that isn't the case. The glacier--and Greenland's whole ice sheet--is melting, and Colgan and his colleagues warned in a study published in Geophysical Research Letters in early August that the base's wastes will spill out by 2090, carried by meltwater through tunnels in the glacier into the ocean. Ugh!

What's scary about climate change is that there are so many unanticipated ways that it will affect us. I study our warming planet full-time. I'm even writing a chapter right now, with Rutger's Bob Kopp and other colleagues, about what surprises the future may hold under a changing climate. But in my wildest imagination, I couldn't have imagined these headlines!

These three examples illustrate how the earth's climate system - and all of us who live in it - are bound together by an unimaginably complex web of action and reaction. As we continue this unprecedented experiment with our planet, there's one thing we know for sure: the imperative to curb emissions and slow our warming has never been clearer.

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Going Green, Including All: Transformative Climate Communities in California
As someone deeply concerned about climate equity in California - that is, ensuring that those communities most at risk from climate change are directly included in our state's cutting-edge efforts to address global warming - I've been in a bit of suspense. Specifically, I've been concerned because one key bill to advance these goals, AB 2722, has been in a so-called "suspense" file in the Senate Appropriations committee, the place where bills with a fiscal impact wait to move forward.

Thankfully, the suspense is over: the bill just got attached to an overall spending proposal for the unallocated portion of the state's cap-and-trade revenues (which are formally known as Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds). But now the real task begins: the broader spending bill needs to be passed by the state legislature and the current $175 million of funding, already cut back from the original proposal, sustained at a level necessary to achieve the goals articulated in AB 2722.

What is AB 2722? The bill seeks to create a new Transformative Climate Communities Program that would direct the Strategic Growth Council - of which I am a public member - to fund implementation of new or existing neighborhood level plans that include integrated, innovative, cross-cutting projects to address climate change in ways that deliver multiple benefits in disadvantaged communities. These plans would be driven by multi-stakeholder collaborations of community-based organizations working in partnership with community development groups, local agencies, and others.

Can this work? In my own hometown of Los Angeles, a groundbreaking new ordinance was passed earlier this year that will help reduce health risks from industrial and traffic pollution in three of our most economically and environmentally vulnerable communities: Boyle Heights, Pacoima/Sun Valley, and Wilmington. Tired of the over-concentration of polluting industries in their neighborhoods, residents themselves led a "Clean Up Green Up" campaign to turn their communities into Green Zones where local land use policy would reduce toxic threats where they live, work, and play.

Just entering the implementation phase, Clean Up Green Up is one of the first such environmental justice policies to be passed by a major city and a good example of the kind of innovative solutions that are possible through collaboration between local residents, researchers, city officials, urban planners, and local businesses. Indeed, one key factor in Clean Up Green Up passing was the eagerness of existing small businesses to modernize their operations and reduce impacts (and thus the inclusion of a mechanism to provide them with financial and technical assistance to do so), coupled with the community's desire to set stronger standards for new and expanded industries.

The new Transformative Climate Communities Program will build on efforts like Clean Up Green Up to forge community-led visions and solutions for sustainable, climate resilient neighborhoods as well as help create meaningful employment in the remaking of these areas. It doesn't dictate which approach to take but will allow cities, local jurisdictions, and communities to accelerate sustainability by proposing and developing their own plans and strategies, be they for more trees, more solar, or better transit.

By directing more resources to the least advantaged neighborhoods, it also helps ensure that places that are often the most impacted and often the least well-positioned to take advantage of current programs, particularly in Southern California and the Central Valley, will have a better shot at using cap-and-trade dollars to meet their needs.

Finally, the Transformative Climate Communities Program can offer examples of what it really means to change our local landscapes - to make communities places where the air is cleaner, transit and pedestrian options are plentiful, and conservation is embraced as a way of life. Cap-and-trade has had its controversies but the sort of community-building and awareness about climate that AB 2722 will promote seems like a sweet spot in the fight against global warming and for community sustainability - and it's little wonder that it has garnered strong support from environmental and environmental justice advocates.

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Should Beach Driving Be Banned?
A cherished right for Oregonians, or an environmental and safety nuisance?

Homeowners in Gearhart and Warrenton are taking their complaints about unsafe drivers on the beach to local and state officials. They want to see the elimination, reduction or increased enforcement of traffic.

"Driving on the beach may have made sense back in the days before Highway 101, but by now we should know better than to allow our natural areas to be desecrated by this kind of use," a group of Surf Pines homeowners wrote the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department office in Fort Stevens.

The homeowners met with Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici at a Seaside town hall meeting early this month to voice concerns about unsafe driving, fireworks and bad behavior.

"Our trails leading to the beach from our neighborhoods are left with human and dog feces, vomit, trash and toilet paper," they told officials. "Reckless and careless driving abounds with cars and trucks spinning around on the sand, attempts to drive up the trailheads, driving in the sand dunes and driving through the tide pools. Many of these illegal activities go on year round."

Fourth of July drama

"They felt the Fourth of July was out of control," Fort Stevens State Park Manager Teri Wing said after meeting with residents. "They wanted to find out: 'What do we do? Who do we call? We don't feel like there's anybody watching.'"

Bergin said closing the Clatsop County beach to vehicles is an idea floated "every other year or two."

While the sheriff acknowledged enforcement problems every Independence Day, including this past one, closing off the beaches would be a mistake.

"It's a very small group of people who complain," Bergin said. "How are families going to get down there with their strollers and little kids? Elderly and handicapped people like to drive that section of the beach. These people are trying to encroach on that. They own these homes along the beach and want their own private little walking space. It's not going to happen."

A right or a privilege?

The Oregon Coast consists of smaller beaches that are often secluded in the margins between the Pacific Ocean and steep, prominent headlands.

The Warrenton-to-Gearhart route and some areas around Pacific City and Lincoln City are open for cars, along with Sand Lake Dunes Recreational Area, where off-road vehicles are permitted in some stretches.

Cars and trucks are allowed at any time in the 10-mile stretch between Peter Iredale Road south to the beach ramp at Gearhart, including the Sunset Beach State Recreation Site, the west trailhead to the Fort to Sea Trail. A 25 mph speed limit is in effect along the shore.

State law grants the Parks and Recreation Department authority "to take action to protect ocean shore resources, to protect public health and safety, to provide security, to avoid user conflicts, or for other reasons deemed necessary."

Beach driving is considered almost a right among long-time residents, Wing said.

Environmental concerns

Neal Maine, a wildlife photographer, pointed to the hazards to birds caused by drivers.

"I don't think there's anybody patrolling the beaches," Maine said. "It turns into a race track, turning around, spinning, spinning. Let's have access to a phone number so on busy weekends there's a patrol officer there continuously, and they're making their presence known."

Drivers like to cause birds to fly or roust flocks while the birds are storing up valuable energy for migrations. "The main issue on our beaches is the continued action of shorebirds that is caused by cars," Maine said. "They're picking out invertebrates out of the sand when they only have a limited amount of time. These are calories they need on the way to get to the Arctic to get to the nesting cycle."

Maine said he would like to see a new management plan with a police enforcement component.

"Camping's prohibited -- but it's easy to go to the beach and find 100 tents," he said. "The same with the driving. On the highway we have patrols, but on the beach it's very limited. State Parks has no vehicles to patrol it. They don't plan on patrolling it. They don't have the resources to patrol it. They farm it out to a default program with the county sheriff, which is not adequate for continuous monitoring."

Legislation opposed

State legislation introduced in the 1990s limiting beach access for vehicles along the 10-mile roadway was highly unpopular in Clatsop County and vigorously opposed at the time.

In 1995, the Gearhart City Council, backed by a petition signed by hundreds of residents, sent a letter to the state Legislature opposing the bill, which ultimately died in committee.

Today, 75 percent of Clatsop County beaches are off-limits to cars, according to Wing, including Cannon Beach, where only permitted vehicles -- for people with disabilities, boating or collecting driftwood, among other uses -- are allowed along the beach. Access is at Tolovana Wayside.

Enforcement

Chris Havel, the associate director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said most people "run afoul of rules unintentionally," and it's faster and more effective to get people on track with a quick talk. Enforcement for speeding or other violations along the beach fall to the Sheriff's Office or Oregon State Police.

"A lot of people go around in a circle, around and around, making 'cookies,'" Wing said. "It's not the right thing to do, but it's something that people don't realize they shouldn't do. It's a beach, not a playground."

Former Arizona state trooper Teresa McKee began work in July as reserve deputy, replacing retired deputy John Wood. She's already made a big difference, Bergin said, recovering stolen bicycles and issuing citations for drug and alcohol offenses.

Most citations are written to drivers for reckless driving, Bergin said. Other tickets may be issued for illegal camping, trash or fireworks. "We don't write a lot of tickets," he said. "But if we don't get compliance, there will be a citation issued."

Despite concerns from homeowners, the beach road should remain open, he said. "Ninety-nine percent of the time people pick up their garbage and obey all the rules," he said. "It's that 1 percent that goes down there and causes a problem or two. Why should everyone else have to suffer for that 1 percent? We will continue to enforce the laws and do the right thing to keep that Clatsop County beach open."

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The Loneliness Of Advocating For Wildlife Conservation

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Image Credit: Huffington Post Images

If there is something I have learned this year; it is that advocating for wildlife conservation and environmentally-friendly eating is a lonely undertaking.

Many friends and family listen, but seem not to "hear." Articles I write with THE FACTS get a mere few reads.

When I encourage patients to eat more plant-based, for health--and to prevent or alleviate disease--(I don't even bring up the environment), they look at me like, "Are you crazy?"

And, most colleagues, who I feel should have an understanding or knowledge about environmental issues (I work in the medical field) seem completely ambivalent.

Thus, I FEEL VERY ALONE in this fight.

I feel like no one gets me, or understands my passion.
No one understands my want, MY NEED, to protect, advocate, and "shout" for wildlife conservation.

They seem only to care about what affects them, personally, at that moment. They cannot foresee or understand the detrimental future that lay before us.

Yet, I know there are other people out there who are JUST as passionate as I am. The makers of the movies "The Cove" and "Racing Extinction", the Oceanic Preservation Society, is one such group.

I know that Sylvia A. Earle and Carl Safina feel the same way. I've read their books!

I've even had the pleasure and fortune of speaking with some of the great minds on conservation, dolphin and orca intelligence, and nutritional-sustainability.

But, I tell you, it is challenging. It is difficult. It is lonely to advocate for something that no one immediately around you seems to care about.

What got me started in my quest for wildlife conservation was the movie, "The Cove." An expose on the dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Japan. That night, and for weeks after watching the movie I was so sad, I would randomly cry when an image of a dolphin popped into my mind's eye.

I would follow and update myself daily on the dolphin hunts (They run from September 1 - February 28) in the hopes that if I was vigilantly watching, maybe, just maybe it would be a "Blue Cove Day." That maybe, just maybe, no dolphins would be found, and lives would be spared.

I felt so helpless and hopeless to do anything. I don't know how the cove monitors or cove guardians live-record what is happening.

It seems too much to bear.

I know why they go; and, if I summon up enough courage, I might consider going some day too. The go so they can be the eyes and ears of what is happening. They go to record and show the world. They go to be a source of strength for the dolphin lives that have been shattered, ripped apart, and stolen too early from this Earth. So, I do what I can, and donate to those groups, to support their work; and I write.

I write about what I know. I write about what I've watched, live. I write about what I've read. I write, I write, I write. I write so that people can read and learn about what is happening.

I write so that the dolphins, or the whales, or the elephants, or the rhinos, or...fill in the blank...animal has a voice.

Because, to be silent is to perpetuate the killing.

If I instead make noise, maybe just maybe I will educate one more person today, who will, like me, become tomorrow's great advocate.

I volunteer to assist organizations in what I do best. Write or Speak.

But, it is and it can be lonely.

Fortunately, I was recently able to reach out to someone else; someone who has even been to Taiji. I was able to commiserate with her about her experience there; about how we both came to love this work-of advocating. Her story was so similar to mine. And, her experience in Taiji was not so dissimilar from my experiences with climate change and food security in Ethiopia for my doctoral research.

So, while people near me may not "GET ME" or understand my passion, it's OK.

I mean, it hurts, it's lonely, it's challenging, and can be demoralizing.

But, with the Taiji, Japan dolphin slaughters set to resume on the first of September, less than 2 weeks from now, it will be nice to have someone, a shoulder to lean on (aside from my husband's very wet one), to discuss the situation with; because, these slaughters should NEVER be allowed to happen.

Yes, different people have different things that motivate them or call them to action, and I probably won't understand theirs.

But, I've definitely found mine.

My motivation is wildlife. My motivation is to see an end to brutal, callous, needless, and greedy mass murders of sentient, aware, empathetic, loving animals.

If I can touch even one more person and his or her sense of empathy, their sense of humanity, and basic decency, then perhaps one-by-one we can guide humans and conservation in the right direction.

In a way, it has been a journey, an evolution to get to this point. I've also been fortunate enough to be given a voice on blogs such as this, Huffington Post and Planet Experts.

Every day, in my spare time, I find my passion, my need and desire to educate only gets stronger; and as it does, my community of advocates and friends grows.

I guess it's true what they say, "Anything worth having, (or doing), isn't easy."

Sadly, in less than two weeks, the Japanese dolphin slaughters will begin. It will be difficult. It will be emotional. It will be lonely.

I do what I do, I write, I donate, I volunteer, because: "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it" - Robert Swan OBE

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In Canada's Boreal Forest, ‘The Land That Gives Life' Inspires a Push for Protection

A couple works to win UNESCO recognition to help save the vast wilderness of Pimachiowin Aki and preserve a culture's link to the Earth

For millennia, the Anishinaabe people of the Poplar River First Nation, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, have called the boreal forest that surrounds and sustains them Pimachiowin Aki: The Land That Gives Life.

Pimachiowin Aki runs from the eastern shores of the world's 10th-largest freshwater lake (Lake Winnipeg) deep into an undisturbed wilderness that covers 8.25 million acres. The vast, verdant region crosses a provincial boundary into Ontario and encompasses the traditional territories of several other Indigenous First Nations.

In a world where nature is increasingly diminished and threatened by human activities, Pimachiowin Aki is that rare place with room to breathe. It looks today much like scientists say it did at the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago.

Entirely free from mining, logging, or hydroelectric development, this swath of forest forms the largest network of contiguous protected areas in Canada's boreal shield. More than 5,600 freshwater lakes and 8,000 marshes dot the landscape. The intact forest and wetlands support more than 40 species of mammals, including threatened woodland caribou that require large and isolated tracts of intact habitat to thrive. Wolverines, black bears, minks, and lynxes are abundant, and 220 species of birds populate the trees, shorelines, and wetlands.

The Anishinaabe people have been the keepers of this land for more than 6,000 years, maintaining a culture rooted in respect for an environment that has provided them with the food, water, and shelter they need to survive the harsh northern climate. That relationship with the environment is evident in the Anishinaabe burial sites, long-abandoned settlements, early travel routes, and age-old trap lines that have become part of the fabric of the forest.

A river winds through the boreal forest at Pimachiowin Aki, a proposed UNESCO World Heritage site in northern Canada. Photo credit: Katye Martens/The Pew Charitable Trusts

The international community has taken notice. In May, two advisory bodies to UNESCO recommended that the organization list Pimachiowin Aki as a World Heritage site in recognition of its “outstanding universal value.” The vast majority of territory within Pimachiowin Aki is already protected from development, but the designation would signal that its preservation is also in the global interest.

If listed, Pimachiowin Aki would be the first World Heritage site in North America recognized for both its cultural and natural values. The listing would also mark the culmination of a decade-long campaign by the First Nations of the region.

The inscription of Pimachiowin Aki on the World Heritage List was on the agenda for the 40th meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee at its July meeting in Istanbul.

But at the request of Canada, the committee agreed to refer the nomination after one First Nation withdrew from the project, giving time for Poplar River and the other Indigenous communities that support it to regroup and resubmit their bid for recognition.

Even with the recent setback, Pimachiowin Aki was hailed by several nations that said it provided a new model for World Heritage sites occupied by Indigenous peoples. UNESCO declared it a “landmark” nomination that “demonstrates how the indissoluble bounds that can exist between culture and nature might be recognized” on the World Heritage List.

“We will continue to work together for the ‘land that gives life.' Our commitment to take care of the land for the world and for future generations is as strong as ever,” said Sophia Rabliauskas of Poplar River, a longtime advocate for Pimachiowin Aki.

Sophia and her husband, Ray, have worked tirelessly to have Pimachiowin Aki added to the UNESCO list because of their desire to share Anishinaabeg culture with the world, preserve it for their grandchildren, and protect a forest region that provides critical ecological services to the planet, such as helping to regulate the global climate.

“Anishinaabeg really believe that they're inseparable from the land because of their sacred connection, because of their sacred responsibility of looking after the land,” Sophia Rabliauskas told Pew, which has shared the couple's story in its People of the Boreal multimedia series.

The Anishinaabe protect the boreal forest because they are part of it, says Ray Rabliauskas. “The land and the people,” he says, “are the same.”

Jeff Wells, science director for the Boreal Songbird Initiative, is an adviser to The Pew Charitable Trusts' international boreal conservation campaign.

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Beyond The Bad Press: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Forests- Part 2
With the Olympics in full swing, we continue to highlight the remarkable environmental aspects of Rio de Janeiro or Cidade Maravilhosa (the Marvelous City) that may be lost amid the negative media attention the city has received leading up to the games. In our previous post, Part 1 of the Beyond the Bad Press series, we started looking at Rio's National Park of Tijuca (Parque Nacional da Tijuca), part of the Mata Atlântica forest and known as the largest urban forest in the world. With over 15 square miles of forest located in the middle of the city, spectacular views from its highest peaks, and a large diversity of unique flora and fauna, the National Park of Tijuca is easy to impress. There is another aspect of Rio de Janeiro's urban forest that warrants additional awe: its history.

When hiking throughout the park with magnificent and monumental trees that tower over you and emit an aura of grandeur and wisdom, it's normal to assume that the forest has been there forever. However in reality, there was a time when much of this park was actually cleared of forest. Most of the park is second-growth forest (forests that naturally replace original forests that have experienced disturbances), and a section of the park (known as Floresta da Tijuca) was actually completely replanted- by hand- in the late 1800's.

From the 1600 to the 1800s, much of the original Mata Atlântica forest in the city was cut down to make room for coffee plantations and sugar mills. By 1840, although coffee production had mostly moved to other areas, the region was left with severe watershed damage and droughts that the threatened the city's water supply and the economic growth. By this time, the imperial government of the Empire of Brazil realized the extent of the damage and made the first declaration acknowledging the need to reclaim the deteriorating watershed to address the water shortage, but efforts proved futile.

Between 1845 and 1848, small-scale tree planting and forest protection measures began on government-acquired private properties to revive the city's water supply. However, it wasn't until 1860 when Emperor Pedro II issued an order to reforest Rio's watersheds with native plants that the true replanting efforts began. Between 1862 and 1887 about 95,000 native seedlings were planted in what would soon be called the Floresta da Tijuca, with the majority of this occurring between 1862 and 1872, when 60,000 seedlings were put into the earth.

The reforestation of this area was not intended specifically for conservation or recreation purposes or to be turned into national parks. They were, at first, just a response to the fact that cities need green areas not simply for its beauty and wildness, but for the essential resources and services they supply us with. Forests and parks in urban areas are vital to providing cities with, among other things, runoff reduction, carbon storage, temperature moderation, air pollution filtration, as well as clean water, as Rio's case exemplified. Although in the early 20th century Rio taped into other water sources outside the Tijuca watershed, without this reforestation, Rio's water shortage problems might have prevented the city from becoming the Cidade Maravilhosa we know today.

Rio's national park was only designated as such in 1961, a century after reclamation efforts began. But the reforestation as well as the effective land management practices in other parts of the forest allowed these areas to grow back undisturbed. Much of the deforested land that was not replanted by hand experienced successional second-growth as a result of adequate land management practices. Over time, the area grew into the majestic forest we see today, and eventually was proclaimed a protected national park. Through Rio's urban forests, we witness nature's resiliency and the capacity of nature to flourish once again when it is given a chance as well as a little bit of human help.

Although it would be difficult to rival, Rio's National Park of Tijuca shows that it's not too late for urban forests and parks to be introduced into a city. Cities, developing or developed, mega or small, can carve out little pieces of green space- be it in already built areas, unused or even abandoned places (think New York City's High Line and Lowline)- in order not only to provide some wilderness to urban citizens, but also to supply cities with the ecosystem services they need. As we will examine in the next piece of this series, Rio's urban forests present cities (both in developed and developing countries) an example of the potential that urban green spaces can offer sustainable development.

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Don't miss Part 3, the last piece of the "Beyond the Bad Press: Rio de Janeiro's Urban Forests" series by The Sustainability Co-Op, to be published next week.

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Skeptical About Climate Deniers
Few concepts are more poorly understood or more abused than skepticism. The best example of this abuse is to attribute the moniker of "climate change skeptic" to those who ignore the overwhelming data concerning global warming.

The shortest definition of skepticism is "an attitude of doubting the truth about a claim or statement." Something a bit more meaningful would be "suspending judgment and applying systematic reservation about a claim or statement."

So why can't we rightfully call a denier a skeptic since he doubts or has reservations about the truth about climate change claims, which would at first glance meet the definition of skepticism? We shall see.

Michael Shermer, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, has rightfully noted that "skepticism is not a position, it is a process." It is the application of critical thinking to evaluate the validity of an assertion. Saying that "I am a skeptic" has little meaning because that is a stance; more meaningful is a statement like, "I am open to accepting a claim if presented with sufficiently convincing evidence."

What we are talking about here, even though everybody uses the term skepticism, is actually "ordinary incredulity." We are not including here what is technically "philosophical doubt" -- a more formal version of skepticism, an intellectual exercise to deny the validity of an entire class of claims by positing that certain knowledge is not attainable even in theory. Yeah, I know, that is a little opaque. But we really do need to understand the distinction between ordinary incredulity and philosophical skepticism before we can nail down why deniers are not in fact skeptics. The best way I've come across is a review of the Truman Show and the Matrix as put forth in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Truman is placed, without his knowledge, in a contrived environment so that his "life" can be broadcast on television. Truman comes across clues that something is wrong. In The Matrix, where everything is running as programmed by the machines, there is no possible way for the "people" in the matrix to determine that the world as experienced is only a "dream world" and not the real world (the world of causes and effects). The Truman Show is a depiction of a case of ordinary incredulity because there is some evidence that is, in principle, available to Truman for determining what's really the case; whereas The Matrix depicts a situation similar to that imagined by a typical philosophical skeptic in which it is not possible for the Matrix-bound characters to obtain evidence for determining that things are not as they seem (whenever the virtual reality is perfectly created). Put another way, the philosophical skeptic challenges our ordinary assumption that there is evidence available that can help us to discriminate between the real world and some counterfeit world that appears in all ways to be identical to the real world.

So from that we conclude that ordinary incredulity (what people typically call skepticism) arises when in principle doubt can be removed by discovering the truth of some claim or statement.

And here is precisely why climate change deniers do not have the high privilege of being called skeptics. No amount of data, no convincing evidence, and no degree of proof would ever convince a denier that climate change is real. Even in principle a denier's doubt cannot be removed because a denier is relying on faith rather than evidence to support his position. If doubt cannot be removed with new knowledge or advances in understanding, then that is not skepticism - it is just a form of religion.

Cynicism Is Not Skepticism

Offering a skeptical perspective is not cynical; in fact quite the opposite is true. Cynics doubt and mistrust not on the weight of evidence or lack thereof but on suspicions of underlying motivation. Cynicism can lead to the rejection of a claim but not to new discoveries, unlike skepticism which can lead to both.

Provisional disbelief is often mistaken as cynicism; the two are not equivalent. It is perfectly reasonable to start out unconvinced that humans are causing our climate to change. But that shifts to cynicism and faith-based opposition with the inability to modify that position in the presence of overwhelming evidence. What matters, independent of one's starting hypothesis, is the willingness to draw conclusions when a claim is confirmed "to such an extent that it would be reasonable to offer temporary agreement."

Skepticism is fully embedded in the scientific method: the application of systematic observation, reproducible measurements, and experimentation in order to gain new knowledge about and a deeper understanding of our physical and biological world. The entire reason for applying systematic observation is that we are open to but remain skeptical of any claim's validity until observation, reproducible measurements and experimental confirm or reject the claim.

Climate change denial is a form of cynicism and as such is the antithesis of skepticism; it is the closed-minded pre-determined rejection of any and all data that might validate the claim that our climate is changing, and the blind credulous acceptance of any unsubstantiated assertions that support the denial. Here is the bottom line difference between a denier and someone currently convinced the climate is changing: if presented with convincing contrary evidence that demonstrates the earth's climate is not warming, or is changing by natural cyclical variation alone, one who temporarily accepted that the earth is warming because of human activity would modify his conclusion based on this new knowledge. In contrast, no mountain of data demonstrating that humans are causing a changing climate would cause a denier to modify his conclusion. Skepticism demands an open mind and allows for and encourages the advancement of knowledge by seeking explanations of phenomena anchored in the natural world; faith-based denial is immune to modification.

A denier may come back and say that in fact those who claim the climate is changing are the ones with closed minds since they openly reject what deniers believe. But no, that is false equivalency; deniers could indeed make headway if they could present convincing data but the inverse is not true.

Open Mind, Gullibility and Conviction

We must not confuse an open mind with gullibility. A mind open to change in the face of convincing data is not equivalent to credulous acceptance of a claim absent of evidence. Nor can we confuse an open mind with lack of conviction. Climate change experts are secure in their conclusions based on overwhelming evidence across multiple disciplines, confirmed independently by thousands of scientists in hundreds of countries. They have no less an open mind because they are firm in their conclusion. With overwhelming evidence in hand the threshold for modifying one's temporary acceptance becomes ever higher. The threshold for change is elevated on the basis of accumulating evidence, not faith. We can confidently conclude, without being accused of being closed minded, that atoms are a building block of nature, that DNA contains the genetic code, and that the earth orbits the sun. Being highly confident about these statements is justified by incredibly precise measurements, reproducible observations and extraordinarily refined experimentation performed by tens thousands of scientists over decades or centuries. Yes it would be possible to overturn these conclusions with sufficiently convincing contrary data, but given the history leading to our understanding of these aspects of the natural world, that is not likely to happen. That does not make us closed-minded; it makes us firm in our convictions but open to being convinced otherwise by overwhelming data. Climate change deniers in contrast can never be otherwise convinced.

Deep Irony

Climate change deniers bring to the debate a deep irony and terrible hypocrisy that add another disturbing element beyond the important difference between cynicism and skepticism. We know that deniers demand more proof that the climate is warming even in the face of a growing body of accumulating evidence. We know too that while they demand such proof no quantity of date would ever be sufficient because the denial is not based in skepticism but in cynicism and faith. And yet. And yet this same demand for proof is conspicuously and gloriously absent when the question turns to patently false claims about fat-burning foods or a host of bogus promises relating to diet and nutrition, or the link between autism and vaccines, or the economic viability of nuclear power, or clean coal, or alien landings, or the Bermuda Triangle, or virtually anything that is not climate change. Only with climate change is such proof demanded; meaning we have the circumstance in which deniers reject a conclusion for which we have overwhelming evidence but accept wild claims for which there is none. Some significant number of Republicans, even if not a majority as sometimes reported, believes that Obama is a Muslim; where is the demand for proof? Such is the dangerous brew of faith stirred with cynicism in the absence of reasonable credulity.

There are no climate change skeptics; only faith-based climate change cynics.

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New York's '50 By 30': A Model For The Rest Of America
As Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump roll out their very different energy policy platforms -- with Clinton promoting production of renewable energy and Trump of traditional energy -- it's useful to look at activities at the state level. Because President Obama's Clean Power Plan is making its way through the courts, there is virtually no federal energy policy, which means the 50 states of America are providing 50 pilot programs showing how different potential new federal energy policies could be implemented.

Among the progressive states, New York is worth watching. Governor Andrew Cuomo has advanced a "50 by 30" (50 percent of electric energy must come from renewables by the year 2030) climate and energy policy. Due to its rich existing endowment of energy resources, New York has the luxury to choose from contending forms of renewable and zero or low carbon energy resources. In 2015, 45 percent of New York's electricity came from oil, gas, and coal. That means 55 percent of electric power already comes from low or zero-carbon emitting resources. Here is the breakdown of that 55 percent.

31 percent of New York's electric energy in 2015 came from New York's nuclear plants. Whatever one's view of nuclear, it does produce carbon-free electric power. The problem is, some of the nuclear plants are in dire straits economically, and some are quite far along in the 60-year expected life span of these facilities. If New York could keep its nuclear plants open, maintaining "50 by 30" will be easier; if all of the nuclear plants close, it will be much, much harder. New York is already at "50 by 30" only by virtue of its struggling nuclear power fleet. Hence the determination of the Cuomo administration to keep the upstate nuclear power plants operating until 2030. The mechanism for allowing nuclear plants to survive is by awarding them "zero emissions credits" and requiring electric distribution companies to purchase those credits.

19 percent of New York's power in 2015 came from hydro, anchored of course by the huge facility at Niagara Falls. Only 2.8 percent of New York's electricity in 2015 came from wind. It has the potential for much more wind development, most of it located in upstate. Additional wind capacity could be developed assuming a buildout of north-to-south and west-to-east transmission to get the clean power to downstate markets. New York can import more clean power from Quebec and from PJM (the New Jersey-Pennsylvania-Maryland market). Several advanced new transmission projects are in development that could serve as "renewable expressways" into New York. New York could also ultimately be home to several thousand MW of offshore wind.

Solar energy is expanding rapidly, although most of it is "behind the meter" or a "retail" form of renewable energy. As the idea of "microgrids" takes hold as a result of New York's regulatory reforms, solar will continue to expand in New York. Energy efficiency is also part of the microgrid toolkit, so substantial additional efficiency improvements will continue. This microgrid-led activity in the retail sector of the industry will show up largely as slightly declining demand for electric power from the wholesale sector.

What implications does the New York experience have for President Clinton, or President Trump's, energy policy? Acknowledging that the state's carbon goal requires keeping nukes alive is an important adjustment in the clean energy narrative. But, the subsidy is aimed at "keeping nukes alive," not at creating the next generation of nuclear plants. That experiment is being conducted in other states (almost all in the South) and it is not going well: it turns out that electricity from new nuclear plants may be more expensive than renewable energy from wind and solar.

It's worth asking what New York will ultimately get from this portfolio of renewable and carbon-free initiatives. One answer comes from the old idea of "comparative advantage." What does New York have that makes it competitive in the renewable energy business? To be sure, it has finance, it has technology and first class educational systems. It seeks to be a 21st century high tech manufacturer.

Perhaps its most important attribute, however, is its location. The State's electric infrastructure -- its transmission and microgrid assets -- can, with modest investment, capitalize on New York's comparative advantages to create a booming, region-wide, renewable energy trade. With New York City and Long Island as the fulcrum, New York should be at the center of commerce between its own energy-rich upstate, the massive power market of "PJM" (essentially the area from New Jersey to North Carolina, westward to Illinois), New England, Quebec and Ontario. The greater northeast of North America abounds with intelligence, capital, and natural resources. New York can uniquely be the hub of regional renewable energy trade.

At first glance, the argument that New York will be the hub of an interregional market in renewable energy seems old-fashioned. But it isn't for two reasons. First, a regional renewable energy market, anchored in expanded trading links between New York and its neighbors, will provide electricity users throughout northeastern North America with access to the affordable renewable energy that is all around us. Second, an open market where energy and technology is traded is critical for the adoption of innovation. When markets are closed -- whether it be by actions of utilities or regulators -- innovation is stifled and along with it the economic growth that New York expects to get out of its renewable energy initiatives. Only with a regional renewable energy markets linking producers and consumers of energy can New York and northeastern North America secure large amounts of carbon-free energy at affordable prices.

What's true for the Northeast would be even more true for the nation as a whole. It's unfortunate that the Obama Administration's clean energy programs were largely thwarted. But Hillary Clinton has elaborated an ambitious and progressive renewable energy vision. The result of New York's effort provides other states with a roadmap on how to transition from vision to action, from the old fossil-fuel based power system to the new one based on renewable and sustainable power sources.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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