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Boycott Murdoch media plugging climate change denialism before next IPCC report

by Dr Gideon Polya - Open-Publishing - Tuesday 17 September 2013

An important recent article in the Mainstream media is that by Dana Nuccitelli “The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of he IPCC Report”, The Guardian (Australia), 16 September 2013: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial .

QUOTE: “Climate contrarians appear to be running damage control in the media before the next IPCC report is published. [Photograph of Rupert Murdoch] Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and The Australian are providing the media coverage for climate contrarian damage control…Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists… Stage 2: Deny We’re the Cause… Stage 2 Consensus Denial… Stage 3: Deny It’s a Problem… Stage 4: Deny We can Solve It… Stage 5: It’s too Late.”

The article provides key data in 2 graphs demolishing “Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists” and showing that:

(1) over 90% of extra heat has gone into the oceans and the trend is remorselessly upwards with time (global heat accumulation data, from Nuccitelli et al. (2012)) [see US EPA: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/ocean-heat.html ] and

(2) loss of 60% of Arctic summer sea ice extent over the last century (average July through September Arctic sea ice extent 1870–2008 from the University of Illinois (Walsh & Chapman 2001 updated to 2008) and observational data from NSIDC for 2009–2012) [see US NSIDC: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ ].

What can sensible people do? Sensible people who care for their children, grandchildren, intergenerational equity, Humanity and the Biosphere should apply an ABC, Accountability, Badge and Credo response of:

(A) Accountability by urging and applying boycotts against people, parties, corporations and media promoting Business As Usual (BAU), climate change denialism, fossil fuel burning and greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in general (e.g. see “Boycott Murdoch Media”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ ) ,

(B) Badge – wear a summarizing badge e.g. “300 ppm CO2” and

(C) articulate a science-informed Credo e.g. “For a safe planet for all peoples and all species we must rapidly return atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration from the current 400 parts per million (ppm) CO2 to the pre-Industrial Revolution level of about 300 ppm CO2” (see ““300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm ; "Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed ; and "2011 climate change course": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course ) .

Climate Emergency actions urgently required include:

(1) change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying,

(2) urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists, and

(3) rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as fossil fuel burning-based power) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to soils and storage coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth.

Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne