Learning from Dogs

A story about the bond between a dog and a human.

Introduction

I was clearing my desk yesterday (yet again) and came across an article that I wrote in 2007.  It’s a message of love; the love of a dog for a human.  But before going to that article, look at the photo below.  It’s a wonderful example of the joy of having Pharaoh in my life.  It was taken in July 2006 at the airfield in Devon, SW England, where a group of us shared a Piper Super Cub, about which I wrote in Learning from Dogs in August 2009.

If you think Pharaoh is smiling, I’m not going to argue with you.  First time in the Cub, first time strapped in to the rear seat, everything utterly strange and Pharaoh is clearly more joyful than the pilot!

Happiness is sharing life with your dog!

Anyway, to the article.  I wrote it in September, 2007, based on something that was sent to me from an unknown author, and modified to reflect the special relationship that I had, and still have, with my then four-year-old German Shepherd, Pharaoh.

I am your dog and have something I would love to whisper in your ear.

I am your dog and have something I would love to whisper in your ear.

I know that you humans lead busy lives. Some have to work, some have children to raise, some have to do this alone.  It always seems like you are running here and there, often much too fast, often never noticing the truly grand things in life.

Look down at me now. See the way my dark brown eyes look at yours.

You smile at me.  I see love in your eyes.  What do you see in mine?  Do you see a spirit? A soul inside, who loves you as no other could in the world? A spirit that would forgive all trespasses of prior wrongdoing for just a simple moment of your time?

That is all I ask. To slow down, if even for a few minutes, and be with me.

So many times, you have been saddened by others of my kind, passing on.  Sometimes we die young and oh so quickly, so suddenly it wrenches your heart out of your throat.  Sometimes, we age so slowly before your eyes that you may not even seem to know until the very end, when we look at you with grizzled muzzles and cataract-clouded eyes.  Still the love is always there, even when we must take that last long sleep dreaming of running free in a distant, open land.

I may not be here tomorrow.  I may not be here next week.  Someday you will shed the water from your eyes, that humans have when grief fills their souls, and you will mourn the loss of just ‘one more day’ with me.  Because I love you so, this future sorrow even now touches my spirit and grieves me. I read you in so many ways that you cannot even start to contemplate.

We have now together.  So come and sit next to me here on the floor and look deep into my eyes. Do you see how if you look deeply at me we can talk, you and I, heart to heart. Come not to me as my owner but as a living soul.  Stroke my fur and let us look deep into the other’s eyes and talk with our hearts.

I may tell you something about the fun of working the scents in the woods where you and I go.  Or I may tell you something profound about myself or how we dogs see life in general.  I know you decided to have me in your life because you wanted a soul to share things with.  I know how much you have cared for me and always stood up for me even when others have been against me.  I know how hard you have worked to help me to be the teacher that I was born to be.  That gift from you has been very precious to me.  I know too that you have been through troubled times and I have been there to guard you, to protect you, to be there for you always.

I am very different to you but here I am.  I am a dog but just as alive as you.

I feel emotion.  I feel physical senses.  I can revel in the differences of our spirits and souls. I do not think of you as a dog on two feet; I know what you are. You are human, in all of your quirkiness, and I love you still.

So come sit with me on the floor. Enter my world and let time slow down if only for a few minutes.  Look deep into my eyes and whisper in my ears. Speak with your heart and I will know your true self.

We may not have tomorrow but we do have now.

Postscript.

Just three months after writing the above, on December 17th, 2007, I flew in to Hemosillo Airport in Mexico to spend Christmas with Suzann, sister of dear friend Dan Gomez, and her husband Don down in the coastal town of San Carlos.  That’s when I met Jean, leading to me and Jean falling in love.  Jean then came to England and I came back to Mexico in June, 2008.  In September, 2008 Pharaoh and I left England permanently and travelled out to San Carlos to be with Jean and her dogs.  In February, 2010, Jean and I, Pharaoh and twelve other dogs, and six cats all moved to Payson, Arizona.

In November, 2010 Jean and I were married.  So the miracle for me and Pharaoh is that when I wrote that piece back in 2007 this most beautiful future was yet to unfold.    I never miss a day when I don’t, “… come sit with me on the floor. Enter my world and let time slow down if only for a few minutes.  Look deep into my eyes and whisper in my ears. Speak with your heart and I will know your true self.”  Now not just with Pharaoh but with Hazel, Dhalia, Sweeny, Casey, Loopy, Lilly, Ruby, and all the other beautiful dog souls.

Jean and me, Yecora, Sonora, Mexico. June 2008

Dear friend Dan Gomez sent this to me on the 9th but I split it into two parts, covering yesterday and today.  Then found that the first part didn’t Post correctly; the pictures were missing.

So both parts are today – enjoy!

oooOOOooo

Part One: How many dogs does it take to change a light bulb?

1. Golden Retriever: The sun is shining, the day is young, we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us,

and you’re inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb?

     2. Border Collie: Just one. And then I’ll replace any wiring that’s not up to code.

   3. Dachshund: You know I can’t reach that stupid lamp!

       4. Rottweiler: Make me!

   5. Boxer: Who cares? I can still play with my squeaky toys in the dark.

6. Lab: Oh, me, me!!!!! Pleeeeeeeeeze let me change the light bulb!

Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeeze, please, please, please!

7. German Shepherd: I’ll change it as soon as I’ve led these people from the dark,

check to make sure I haven’t missed any, and make just one more

perimeter patrol to see that no one has tried to take advantage of the situation!

8. Jack Russell Terrier: I’ll just pop it in while I’m bouncing off the walls and furniture.

9. Old English Sheep Dog: Light bulb? I’m sorry, but I don’t see a light bulb!

10. Cocker Spaniel: Why change it? I can still pee on the carpet in the dark.

11. Chihuahua : Yo quiero Taco Bulb. Or “We don’t need no stinking light bulb.”

12. Greyhound: It isn’t moving. Who cares?

13. Australian Cattle Dog:First, I’ll put all the light bulbs in a little circle…

14. Poodle: I’ll just blow in the Border Collie’s ear and he’ll do it.

By the time he finishes rewiring the house, my nails will be dry.

How many cats does it take to change a light bulb?

Cats do not change light bulbs. People change light bulbs.

So, the real question is: ”How long will it be before I can expect some light, some dinner, and a massage?”

ALL OF WHICH PROVES, ONCE AGAIN, THAT WHILE DOGS HAVE MASTERS, CATS HAVE STAFF!

oooOOOooo

Part Two: Why God made pets!

They help out around the house…

They protect our children… 

They look out for the smaller ones… 

They show us how to relax… 

They “converse” with each other. 

They help you when you’re down… 

They are great at decorating for the Holidays. 

They have “great” expectations. 

They are Patriotic. 

They are happy to “test” the water. 

They know who’s “BOSS. 

AND – They know when we need a good LAUGH! 

HAVE YOU SMILED TODAY? It is done by moving the corners of the mouth upward.
LET ME SHOW YOU HOW…

NOW PASS IT ON, AND MAKE SOMEONE ELSE SMILE!!!

Big thank-you, Dan, but more to the point a big thanks to ‘SKF’ who sent it to you.

More ‘switch-off’ material!

There was a fantastic response to the Interlude Post that came out on the 6th March so I thought I would offer some more of those wonderful pictures.  As I said in that earlier Post, “ Cynthia, the wife of Dan Gomez, emailed me a set of wonderful photographs that had come to her from sister-in-law Suzann.”  So here are some more.  Have a peaceful and relaxed Sunday!

Did you see that!

Hey, I heard that comment!

Mummy, are we nearly there?

We can't go on meeting like this!

Well you guys don't taste that different!

One more time! I'm in charge around here!

Suzann/Cynthia – Please, please, please send more!

Something to keep you quiet for a while!

I’m told by the person who emailed this to me, thanks Cynthia, that there really is a cat in this picture.  Haven’t spotted it myself!

Where's the cat? There really is one in the photograph!

Only so much ‘heavy’ stuff that one can take at a time!

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about my dear friend Dan’s skeptic view of man-cause climate change.  Last Friday, I published a guest post from Patrice Ayme under the title of The collapse of the biosphere.  In the last 24 hours I also wrote a long comment to Martin Lack’s latest post, No cause for alarm? – You cannot be serious!  So, don’t know about you, dear reader, but it felt appropriate for today’s Post to be full of fluffy stuff.

First an update on our latest member of our family, Kaysee (although we prefer the spelling Casey!).  Can’t believe that it was only a week ago since we got Casey from the local Humane Society but that’s what it was, Casey joined us on the 28th February.  Here are two photographs of Casey taken last Saturday, four days ago!

H'mm, let me try his lap!

No, this is definately the better one!

So I think one can say that Casey has settled in very well!

Next, Cynthia, the wife of Dan Gomez, emailed me a set of wonderful photographs that had come to her from sister-in-law Suzann.  Here’s a small selection for you to drool over.

Hallo! You're cute!

Love it when the phone is left on 'vibrate'!

Hey Mum, can I have fur as soft as this?

Sorry guys, I can't open the door for you!

Ah, that's perfect! Maybe a tad lower!

Meanwhile tomorrow it’s back to the grind!

A Sunday interlude

Despite the fact that Jean and I and our animals have lived in Payson for a little over two years, it never crossed my mind to give all you readers a glimpse of this part of the world.

So to remedy that, here’s the Town of Payson tourism website.

The photograph below is a view from the Mogollon Rim that overlooks Payson.

A view to die for!

The WikiPedia entry for Payson is here.

And to close, here’s a short video of the Tonto Natural Bridge that is a short distance from Payson.

A gentle change from yesterday’s topic!

My post yesterday generated quite a lot of heat so here’s a respite.

I saw the following video on Naked Capitalism but was sure that previously I had included it on Learning from Dogs.  So if you have seen it before, apologies, and if not, enjoy.  Here’s a comment left on YouTube to give you a flavour.

It’s so moving to see how everything we humans think we know about flight and took so long to learn completely and flawlessly executed by such a majestic bird as this owl. Note the fact that the head never moves, only the body. Note the adjustments made in each wingstroke, then compare the end of the flight to what a pilot must do to facilitate a landing. Humans deploy the plane’s flaps; the owl does everything with the subtlest of adjustments. Absolutely gorgeous!

So many vested opinions!

Regular readers will know that I published recently, in two parts, a post with the heading of Climate, truth and integrity, the first part being here and the second part here.

To me the arguments supporting the premise that mankind is engaged in the process of destroying our very being are powerful and convincing.  But if there is any serious scientific doubt, then I am reminded of that saying in aviation circles about a risk to the safety of an aircraft, “If there’s any doubt, there’s no doubt!”  Surely, that’s the stance the climate change skeptics should be taking!  Because when the evidence of global warming, pollution, natural resource depletion, species extinctions, and habitat destruction is drawn together and there are no skeptics left, then will the last person left alive please switch the lights off!

Anyway, I’m going to republish, with permission, a recent Post that appeared on Tom Engelhardt‘s powerful blogsite, Tom Dispatch.  It was written by Bill McKibben of 350.org fame.  Here it is,

Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Why the Energy-Industrial Elite Has It In for the Planet

Posted by Bill McKibben at 9:39am, February 7, 2012.

Introduction

Two Saturdays ago, I was walking with a friend in a park here in New York City.  It was late January, but I was dressed in a light sweater and a thin fall jacket, which I had just taken off and tied around my waist.  We were passing a strip of bare ground when suddenly we both did a double-take.  He looked at me and said, “Crocuses!”  Dumbfounded, I replied, “Yes, I see them.”  And there they were, a few clumps of telltale green shoots poking up from the all-brown ground as if it were spring.  Such a common, comforting sight, but it sent a chill through me that noticeably wasn’t in the air.  Even the flowers, I thought, are confused by our new version of weather.

Later that same week, as temperatures in the Big Apple crested 60 degrees, I was chatting on the phone with a friend in Northampton, Massachusetts.  I was telling him about the crocuses, when he suddenly said, “I’m looking out my window right now and for the first time in my memory of January, there’s not a trace of snow!”

Of course, our tales couldn’t be more minor or anecdotal, even if the temperatures that week did feel like we were on another planet.  Here’s the thing, though: after a while, even anecdotes add up — maybe we should start calling them “extreme anecdotes” — and right now there are so many of them being recounted across the planet.  How could there not be in a winter, now sometimes referred to as “Junuary,” in which, in the United States, 2,890 daily high temperature records have either been broken or tied at last count, with the numbers still rising?  Meanwhile, just to the south of us, in Mexico, extreme anecdotes abound, since parts of the country are experiencing “the worst drought on record.”  Even cacti are reportedly wilting and some towns are running out of water (as they are across the border in drought-stricken Texas).  And worst of all, the Mexican drought is expected to intensify in the months to come.

And who can doubt that in Europe, experiencing an extreme cold spell the likes of which hasn’t been seen in decades — even Rome had a rare snowfall and Venice’s canals were reported to be freezing over – there are another set of all-too-extreme anecdotes.  After all, in places like Ukraine, scores of the homeless are freezing to death, pipes are bursting, power cuts are growing, and maybe even an instant energy crisis is underway (at a moment when the European Union is getting ready to cut itself off from Iranian oil).

That’s just to begin a list.  And yet here’s the strange thing.  At least in this country, you can read the “freaky” weather reports or listen to the breathless TV accounts of unexpected tornadoes striking the South in January and rarely catch a mention of the phrase “climate change.”  Given the circumstances, the relative silence on the subject is little short of eerie, even if worries about climate change lurk just below the surface.  Which is why it’s good to have TomDispatch regular Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, take a clear-eyed look at American denialism and just what it is we prefer not to take in. Tom

The Great Carbon Bubble
Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Fights So Hard
By Bill McKibben

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet — as we shall see — it’s unfortunately largely invisible to us.

In compensation, though, we have some truly beautiful images made possible by new technology.  Last month, for instance, NASA updated the most iconic photograph in our civilization’s gallery: “Blue Marble,” originally taken from Apollo 17 in 1972. The spectacular new high-def image [see below, Ed] shows a picture of the Americas on January 4th, a good day for snapping photos because there weren’t many clouds.

It was also a good day because of the striking way it could demonstrate to us just how much the planet has changed in 40 years. As Jeff Masters, the web’s most widely read meteorologist, explains, “The U.S. and Canada are virtually snow-free and cloud-free, which is extremely rare for a January day. The lack of snow in the mountains of the Western U.S. is particularly unusual. I doubt one could find a January day this cloud-free with so little snow on the ground throughout the entire satellite record, going back to the early 1960s.”

In fact, it’s likely that the week that photo was taken will prove “the driest first week in recorded U.S. history.” Indeed, it followed on 2011, which showed the greatest weather extremes in our history – 56% of the country was either in drought or flood, which was no surprise since “climate change science predicts wet areas will tend to get wetter and dry areas will tend to get drier.” Indeed, the nation suffered 14 weather disasters each causing $1 billion or more in damage last year. (The old record was nine.) Masters again: “Watching the weather over the past two years has been like watching a famous baseball hitter on steroids.”

In the face of such data — statistics that you can duplicate for almost every region of the planet — you’d think we’d already be in an all-out effort to do something about climate change. Instead, we’re witnessing an all-out effort to… deny there’s a problem.

Our GOP presidential candidates are working hard to make sure no one thinks they’d appease chemistry and physics. At the last Republican debate in Florida, Rick Santorum insisted that he should be the nominee because he’d caught on earlier than Newt or Mitt to the global warming “hoax.”

Most of the media pays remarkably little attention to what’s happening. Coverage of global warming has dipped 40% over the last two years. When, say, there’s a rare outbreak of January tornadoes, TV anchors politely discuss “extreme weather,” but climate change is the disaster that dare not speak its name.

And when they do break their silence, some of our elite organs are happy to indulge in outright denial. Last month, for instance, the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by “16 scientists and engineers” headlined “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.” The article was easily debunked. It was nothing but a mash-up of long-since-disproved arguments by people who turned out mostly not to be climate scientists at all, quoting other scientists who immediately said their actual work showed just the opposite.

It’s no secret where this denialism comes from: the fossil fuel industry pays for it. (Of the 16 authors of the Journal article, for instance, five had had ties to Exxon.)Writers from Ross Gelbspan to Naomi Oreskes have made this case with such overwhelming power that no one even really tries denying it any more. The open question is why the industry persists in denial in the face of an endless body of fact showing climate change is the greatest danger we’ve ever faced.

Why doesn’t it fold the way the tobacco industry eventually did? Why doesn’t it invest its riches in things like solar panels and so profit handsomely from the next generation of energy? As it happens, the answer is more interesting than you might think.

Part of it’s simple enough: the giant energy companies are making so much money right now that they can’t stop gorging themselves. ExxonMobil, year after year, pulls in more money than any company in history. Chevron’s not far behind. Everyone in the business is swimming in money.

Still, they could theoretically invest all that cash in new clean technology or research and development for the same. As it happens, though, they’ve got a deeper problem, one that’s become clear only in the last few years. Put briefly: their value is largely based on fossil-fuel reserves that won’t be burned if we ever take global warming seriously.

When I talked about a carbon bubble at the beginning of this essay, this is what I meant. Here are some of the relevant numbers, courtesy of the Capital Institute: we’re already seeing widespread climate disruption, but if we want to avoid utter, civilization-shaking disaster, many scientists have pointed to a two-degree rise in global temperatures as the most we could possibly deal with.

If we spew 565 gigatons more carbon into the atmosphere, we’ll quite possibly go right past that reddest of red lines. But the oil companies, private and state-owned, have current reserves on the books equivalent to 2,795 gigatons — five times more than we can ever safely burn. It has to stay in the ground.

Put another way, in ecological terms it would be extremely prudent to write off $20 trillion worth of those reserves. In economic terms, of course, it would be a disaster, first and foremost for shareholders and executives of companies like ExxonMobil (and people in places like Venezuela).

If you run an oil company, this sort of write-off is the disastrous future staring you in the face as soon as climate change is taken as seriously as it should be, and that’s far scarier than drought and flood. It’s why you’ll do anything — including fund an endless campaigns of lies — to avoid coming to terms with its reality. So instead, we simply charge ahead.  To take just one example, last month the boss of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue, called for burning all the country’s newly discovered coal, gas, and oil — believed to be 1,800 gigatons worth of carbon from our nation alone.

What he and the rest of the energy-industrial elite are denying, in other words, is that the business models at the center of our economy are in the deepest possible conflict with physics and chemistry. The carbon bubble that looms over our world needs to be deflated soon. As with our fiscal crisis, failure to do so will cause enormous pain — pain, in fact, almost beyond imagining. After all, if you think banks are too big to fail, consider the climate as a whole and imagine the nature of the bailout that would face us when that bubble finally bursts.

Unfortunately, it won’t burst by itself — not in time, anyway. The fossil-fuel companies, with their heavily funded denialism and their record campaign contributions, have been able to keep at bay even the tamest efforts at reining in carbon emissions. With each passing day, they’re leveraging us deeper into an unpayable carbon debt — and with each passing day, they’re raking in unimaginable returns. ExxonMobil last week reported its 2011 profits at $41 billion, the second highest of all time. Do you wonder who owns the record? That would be ExxonMobil in 2008 at $45 billion.

Telling the truth about climate change would require pulling away the biggest punchbowl in history, right when the party is in full swing. That’s why the fight is so pitched. That’s why those of us battling for the future need to raise our game. And it’s why that view from the satellites, however beautiful from a distance, is likely to become ever harder to recognize as our home planet.

Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch and join us on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 Bill McKibben

This photo was taken on January 4, 2012.

Most Amazing High Definition Image of Earth – Blue Marble 2012

January 25, 2012

*Updated February 2, 2012: According to Flickr, “The western hemisphere Blue Marble 2012 image has rocketed up to over 3.1 million views making it one of the all time most viewed images on the site after only one week.”

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite – Suomi NPP. This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. The NPP satellite was renamed ‘Suomi NPP’ on January 24, 2012 to honor the late Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin.

Suomi NPP is NASA’s next Earth-observing research satellite. It is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth.

Suomi NPP is carrying five instruments on board. The biggest and most important instrument is The Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite or VIIRS.

To read more about NASA’s Suomi NPP go to: www.nasa.gov/npp

Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Just a mid-week diversion.

Today has been one of those days where the best laid plans, etc. just conspired to steal away the time for writing tomorrows Post for Learning from Dogs (today at the time you are reading this!).  So I was incredibly grateful to John H. for sending me an email with a series of remarkable photographs of a very rare albino Hummingbird.

A quick web search revealed that this has already been widely reported, for example in the edition of Huffington Post published on the 31st January last.  Here’s what they wrote,

Stunning photographs of an extremely rare albino ruby-throated hummingbird have been captured in a backyard in Staunton, Va.

The astonishing images showcase the delicate bird’s features like white feathers, a pink bill, pink legs and red eyes.

and later in that article,

Located just 30 miles from the Shank family home, they first heard about the bird on an email list-serve for the bird community, Shank explained. After they got permission, they drove over to the residence where the bird was first spotted and began shooting photos.

Of the 330 hummingbird species found around the globe,the ruby-throated hummingbird is one of the most common in North America.

But experts say the fair-feathered variety are more easily visible to predators and susceptible to disease thanks to the genetic mutation. These weaknesses help make the albino bird all the more rare.

The still shots were taken by Kevin Shank and four of his sons who publish Nature Friend magazine.  Here are some of those remarkable pictures.

Just beautiful.  Thank you, John.

Continuing from Part One last Friday.

Last Friday I started re-publishing the wonderful comments that had appeared on Climate Sight in response to a question that I had raised, namely,

“While in every way that I can think of, I support the premise of mankind affecting global climate, I would love to hear from someone who could reconcile the Post above with these recent items:” and then included the links to the WSJ and Daily Mail items.

If you are not familiar with those WSJ and Daily Mail items, then you will need to go back to Friday’s Post.

So moving on.

The third response was from chrisd3, here’s what he wrote,

Paul, here is the Met Office’s response, which begins, “[The Daily Mail] article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.”

Here is Deltoid taking David Rose apart on some earlier pieces:

And NASA never said anything about the Thames freezing over. Rose just made that bit up.

Finally, here is a chart of global temps from HadCRU:

From this, it is pretty clear why Rose chooses 15 years as his starting point: 1997-1998 was the time of the largest El Nino ever recorded, resulting in a huge temperature spike. Using that as the starting point for a temperature comparison is absolutely classic cherry-picking.

And in any event, you can’t say anything about trends in noisy data by simply comparing two arbitrary points. That is not a valid way to analyze the data (especially if you pick an obvious outlier as your starting point!). It is like trying to say whether the tide is coming in or going out by looking at the height of two waves. It just doesn’t work that way. You have to look at the long-term trend to remove the noise.

Let me take you to that Met Office response (and I’m republishing it in full).

Met Office in the Media: 29 January 2012

Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.

This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.

Despite the Met Office having spoken to David Rose ahead of the publication of the story, he has chosen to not fully include the answers we gave him to questions around decadal projections produced by the Met Office or his belief that we have seen no warming since 1997.

For clarity I have included our full response to David Rose below:A spokesman for the Met Office said: “The ten year projection remains groundbreaking science. The complete period for the original projection is not over yet and these projections are regularly updated to take account of the most recent data.

“The projections are probabilistic in nature, and no individual forecast should be taken in isolation. Instead, several decades of data will be needed to assess the robustness of the projections.

“However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850. Depending on which temperature records you use, 2010 was the warmest year on record  for NOAA NCDC and NASA GISS, and the second warmest on record in HadCRUT3.”

Global average temperatures from 1850 to 2011 from the three individual global temperature datasets (Met Office/UEA HadCRUT3, NASA GISS and NOAA NCDC)

Furthermore despite criticism of a paper published by the Met Office he chose not to ask us to respond to his misconceptions. The study in question, supported by many others, provides an insight into the sensitivity of our climate to changes in the output of the sun.

It confirmed that although solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years this will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases. The study found that the expected decrease in solar activity would only most likely cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).  In addition the study also showed that if solar output reduced below that seen in the Maunder Minimum – a period between 1645 and 1715 when solar activity was at its lowest observed level – the global temperature reduction would be 0.13C.

Back to that response from chrisd3.  He offered this, “Finally, here is a chart of global temps from HadCRU.”  Here is that chart, remember we are looking at Global temperatures.

Global temperature trend

OK, between this Post and my Post last Friday, you probably get the message!  There were many other contributions and I could go on and on quoting the great responses I got, all of them uniformly saying there IS global warming unprecedented in recent years.  The message is crystal clear and those who wish to deny the evidence … well, I can’t come up with a polite term, so will just leave it at that!

My final contribution is from Martin Lack, author of the Blog Lack of Environment, and a good friend of Learning from Dogs.  Here is what he wrote in a recent email,

You may have seen my latest response to How much is most?

When I eventually saw your earlier comment, I was surprised and disappointed in equal measure because I almost feel that I have failed in some way. Let me explain:  Unlike ClimateSight and SkepticalScience, which both do an excellent job of focusing on the science of climate change, my blog is deliberately focused on the politics underlying the denial of all environmental our problems; including 2 key aspects to my MA dissertation, namely the political misuse of scepticism; and the psychology of denial.  See my How to be a Climate Change ‘Sceptic’  for more detail.

Therefore, although not specifically categorised as such, just about everything I have posted is traceable back to Paul and Anne Ehrlich’sBetrayal of Science and Reason (1996) and/or Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s Merchants of Doubt (2010).  For someone who does not currently go to any Church, I am remarkably fond of quoting Scripture so, if necessary, please forgive me but, as the Good Book says:  “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Therefore, I do not think you should be surprised by the amount of misinformation and misrepresentation contained in the original WSJ Sixteen’s article; and/or the fact that denialist arguments are repeated no matter how many times they have been shown to be false.  Furthermore, I would warn against trying to summarise it all on Learning from Dogs.  This is definitely Book territory and, in addition to the two mentioned above, the market is already saturated by the likes of Climate Change Cover-up by James Hoggan and Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook.

With very best wishes for a fog-free future,

What to say to close these two Posts off?  Frankly, it’s difficult to know how to pitch it.  The science seems clear beyond reasonable doubt.  But if you are reading this and disagree, then PLEASE offer the science to refute the conclusions presented here.  I promise you that I will present it on Learning from Dogs.

So let me end with a simple photograph.

Earthrise

This is the photograph that wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called, “the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.”

The now world-famous photograph was taken by Astronaut William Anders from Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the Moon, a little over 43 years ago on December 24th, 1968.

As the Earth rose above the horizon of the moon, NASA astronaut Frank Borman uttered the words, “Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty.”  Bill Anders then took the ‘unscheduled’ photograph.

Now project forward 43 years to the year 2055 and play with the idea of what ‘pretty‘ planet Earth will be like for mankind and so many other species, including our longest companion, the dog, if we don’t get our act together pretty soon!