Disturbing, not only because of the people who have made themselves unable to admit reality, but also because they are obsessive stalkers who threaten innocent people.

Originally shared by Keith Wilson

Share far and wide.

Originally shared by Greg Batmarx

“Black Friday” took on a darker connotation last week when US officials suddenly pushed forward the release date of climate scientists’ latest report on the dangerous impacts of climate change in the United States. The report had been scheduled to come out in two weeks, but scientists were told to get it finalized on short notice so it could be released on a busy Friday instead.

A major report on North America’s carbon cycle was released at the same time.

US government climate report: Climate change is real and our fault

The latest US National Climate Assessment report available in an exceptionally readable format online, is a second volume, and it follows last year’s volume on the physical science of the climate system.

The 2017 report was written by a large group of volunteer scientists and approved by federal agencies, and it summarized peer-reviewed climate research by explaining that climate change is real and the result of human activities.

The new report goes into what we know about the impacts climate change will have on life in the US. It’s also organized in a practical way: there are chapters covering particular types of communities, specific aspects of infrastructure, and each region of the country. This makes it easier to think about how multiple impacts can build on each other, making it easier for readers to find the most relevant sections.

Multiple impacts

Take the energy system, for example. Coastal fuel transportation infrastructure and power plants can be threatened by sea level rise and storm damage. Inland, the grid is still threatened by flooding but from more intense rainstorms. And higher temperatures and more dangerous heat waves mean air conditioning demand will increase in many regions, while reducing the efficiency of transmission lines and stressing the cooling systems of some plants.

For cities, the risks vary by region. Along the East Coast, sea level rise is a major concern, while the West is looking at the growing threat of wildfire. Heat waves threaten vulnerable populations in many cities, while air quality is also affected by fires, shifting pollen seasons, and even the influence of weather on air pollution.

Human health impacts also extend to disease. Vectors like mosquitoes depend on wet weather and live in a range defined by temperature. Flash flooding can lead to water contamination by overwhelming urban drainage systems or enhancing agricultural runoff.

And as for agriculture, the report adds effects on rural communities to the obvious discussion of crop yields. Indigenous communities, too, have risks that will affect their way of life.

The report does touch on the ways that adapting to change, or taking action to limit global warming, can reduce these risks.

Although many things cannot be quantified in economic terms, the report includes efforts to estimate economic impacts.

A major EPA study, for example, estimated the economic damages of unmitigated warming would reach something like $500 billion per year for the US before the end of this century. Even partial emissions cuts that halt warming a few degrees Fahrenheit sooner could cut that almost in half.

Off message

None of this will come as a surprise if you follow the published research closely, these reports are meant to summarize existing information. But that summary is a great resource that saves you the trouble of trawling through the thousands of dense studies it cites.

The report lays out the impacts of climate change in specific, concrete terms. And the statements are clear:

Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth[…] While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades.

The statement the White House put out in response to press questions about the report claims that it is largely based on the most extreme scenario which is false.

A range of future emissions scenarios, the standard set currently used in climate science, is presented everywhere in the report.

The statement also claims that the next round of this report (which is released every few years) will provide for a more transparent and data-driven process.

It’s not clear how that’s possible, given that every detail in the report is drawn directly from the published, peer-reviewed research, and each chapter even contains a “Traceable Accounts” section that explains the reasoning and evidence behind each key summary statement. Every comment submitted during the review process is also available along with individual responses.

In a recent interview with Axios, President Trump was asked about last year’s National Climate Assessment report.

He answered that he had not seen it and did not accept its conclusion that human activities are clearly responsible for climate change. Trump answered I can also give you reports where people very much dispute that but no such report based on peer-reviewed science exists because the evidence and research provide no support for that position.

UPDATE: On Monday, President Trump said of the report I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, and it’s fine. But when asked about the report’s description of the great economic impacts of continued climate change, he answered I don’t believe it.

An interesting argument about why scientific progress continues at a fairly steady rate even though the number of scientists increases.

An actual false flag operation is behind a lot of the most extreme fake news.

Originally shared by BBC News

Fake news! Meet one of the world’s most prolific writers of disinformation.

Only 65% accurate – so far. But one of the markers they’ve detected is that unreliable sites are more likely to engage in emotional hyperbole, which makes sense.

Originally shared by Neuroscience News

Detecting Fake News, At Its Source

Researchers demonstrated a new system that uses machine learning to determine if a source is accurate or politically biased.

Ironically. opinion rather than science – but still worth considering.

Originally shared by Neuroscience News

Our Shared Reality is Fraying

Humans need to believe that there is truth in order to maintain relationships, institutions and society.

Originally shared by Adam Liss

“Dad, why do I need to learn math?”

Because numbers don’t lie… but people do.

To read in full later on.

Originally shared by Anne-Marie Clark

Article is a quick read. Good reminders. “Fundamental impulse at play: our innate desire for an easy answer.”

…

” Fact-checkers, they found, didn’t fall prey to the same missteps as other groups. When presented with the American College of Pediatricians task, for example, they almost immediately left the site and started opening new tabs to see what the wider web had to say about the organization. Wineburg has dubbed this lateral reading.“

…

“Another tactic fact-checkers used that others didn’t is what Wineburg calls ‘click restraint.’ They would scan a whole page of search results–maybe even two–before choosing a path forward. ‘It’s the ability to stand back and get a sense of the overall territory in which you’ve landed,’ he says, ‘rather than promiscuously clicking on the first thing.’ This is important, because people or organizations with an agenda can game search results by packing their sites with keywords, so that those sites rise to the top and more objective assessments get buried.

“The lessons they’ve developed include such techniques and teach kids to always start with the same question: Who is behind the information? Although it is still experimenting, a pilot that Wineburg’s team conducted at a college in California this past spring showed that such tiny behavioral changes can yield significant results. Another technique he champions is simpler still: just read it.

“One study found that 6 in 10 links get retweeted without users’ reading anything besides someone else’s summation of it. Another found that false stories travel six times as fast as true ones on Twitter, apparently because lies do a better job of stimulating feelings of surprise and disgust. “

From:

http://time.com/5362183/the-real-fake-news-crisis/

ht Kee Hinckley

Bolding mine.

While it’s important not to forget about the significant challenges we still have, we’ve come a long way, and the trend is continuing in most places for most people.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

New Evidence That the World Really Is Getting Better https://suhub.co/2yZYitd

Originally shared by Neuroscience News

The Problem with Solving Problems

When problems become rare, we count more things as problems. Our studies suggest that when the world gets better, we become harsher critics of it, and this can cause us to mistakenly conclude that it hasn’t actually gotten better at all.

The research is in Science. (full access paywall)