John Abraham: Years of Living Dangerously – a global warming blockbuster

This new Showtime climate change documentary is a nonfiction thriller you won't want to miss

by John Abraham, "Climate Consensus – The 97%," The Guardian, April 9, 2014

James Cameron is one of the executive producers of "Years of Living Dangerously." Photograph: Handout/REUTERS

In full disclosure, I am jealous that I did not get a chance to work on this – perhaps the most important climate change multimedia communication endeavor in history.

Climate change really is a made-for-TV story. It has all the drama of Hollywood, with real-life villains and heroes thrown in. We scientists struggle everyday to communicate the importance of climate change to the world. It is great to see communication experts come in and accomplish what scientists alone cannot.

That's why I'm excited about the biggest climate science communication endeavor in history. Airing this spring in the US (Showtime), a cast of the world's best climate scientists team up with the world's best politicians and actors to tell the stories of real people from across the planet affected by climate change in "Years of Living Dangerously." The first episode is available here.

The brainchild of veterans from "60 Minutes" (Joel Bach and David Gelber), the series has very high standards of accuracy. Along with the blockbuster style of James Cameron, Jerry Weintraub, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, this endeavor is committed to combining great science with compelling story telling. Behind the scenes is best science team you could imagine, including Drs. Heidi Cullen, Joe Romm, Jim Hansen, Katharine Hayhoe, Michael Mann, Michael Oppenheimer… the list goes on and on.

The project consists of a series of separate stories on climate change, which unfold over nine episodes – often focusing on how a changing climate is affecting peoples' lives. One segment is entitled "Christie and the Storm" with correspondent Mark Bittman. This segment focuses on the impact of Superstorm Sandy, the rebuilding effort in New Jersey, and the intersection of politics and weather.

Don Cheadle takes the lead in the segment "Pray for Rain." He and Texan scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe look at the impacts of drought and heat in the United States in an episode that touches on everything from economics to climate to religion.

Don Cheadle, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, and Dr. Andrew Farley in "Pray For Rain," courtesy of The Years Project/ SHOWTIME.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of my personal heroes on climate change for showing that the subject should not be a liberal or conservative issue, leads the "Fire Line" segment. He joins an elite team of wild-land firefighters as they battle infernos. He discovers a hidden secret that may be a bigger danger to national forests than fires.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Randy Anderson in Fire-line, courtesy of The Years Project/SHOWTIME

There are many more segments covering extreme heat waves and human health, methane and future energy supplies, ice in the arctic, coming political instability with climate change, future energy choices and others. Correspondents include Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, Thomas Friedman, Lesley Stahl, and a very long list of other concerned public figures. In total, 16 segments were produced with locations in the United States, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America, and the Middle East.

How was this effort pulled together? The producers wanted to ensure this series had a long reach. They decided to find well-known figures who were passionate about environmental issues, but were not necessarily experts. Rather, they wanted the correspondents to ask questions on behalf of the audience, questions that the viewers themselves might ask.

The production team was very selective about the composition of the team. The many famous correspondents did not just give cameos; they are truly committed to the project. The production team gave the space for the Hollywood stars to do something most of them had never done before – go into the field as correspondents and work directly with experts. This plan worked; the correspondents were enthusiastic about the chance to work on this series – many of them were already involved in their own efforts to deal with climate change and other environmental issues.

For instance, Matt Damon is Co-Founder of water.org, Harrison Ford is a Conservation International Board Member, Don Cheadle is a UN Environmental Program Global Ambassador, and Ian Somerhalder is the Founder of his namesake organization to educate and engage youth on environmental issues. With commitment and talent like this, how can you go wrong?

David Gelber perhaps sums it up best,

"The goal of this YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY is to galvanize a national conversation on the realities of climate change and inspire people to share their own stories and empower them to get involved in solutions. We're also implementing an engagement campaign that will extend this effort beyond the broadcast to encourage our global leaders in politics, business and religion, as well as concerned citizens, to state where they stand on key climate issues and take action."

The show premiers Sunday, April 13th, at 10 p.m., on SHOWTIME, I think I'm going to get cable TV just for this.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/apr/09/years-of-living-dangerously-global-warming-blockbuster

Heidi Cullen: Romm’s Book ‘Language Intelligence’ Is Insightful And Important

By Heidi Cullen via Climate Central, August 13, 2012

First there was intelligence, then came emotional intelligence. Now Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and well-known ClimateProgress.org blogger, introduces us to the concept of language intelligence in his thoughtful new book Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln and Lady Gaga. Romm defines language intelligence as “the ability to convince people of something by moving them both intellectually and emotionally, at both a conscious and unconscious level.” For those of us working to explain the science and impacts of climate change to the general public, the book is a reference manual for how to be a more effective communicator.

But it’s far more than just a handy how-to guide. At its heart, Language Intelligence is a fascinating history of rhetoric, what Dante called “the sweetest of all the other sciences.” As Romm details, rhetoric was evident in Homer’s 8th century classics The Iliad and The Odyssey and dates back even further — to the Five Books of Moses.

Genesis by itself is a complete rhetoric handbook, containing all the figures of speech, as we will see. The very first story of Adam and Eve reveals the dangerous power of speech. The serpent, “more subtle than any other wild creature,” beguiles Eve with deceptive language and false promises into eating from the tree of knowledge, leading to banishment from Paradise. Such are the bitter fruits of lack of language intelligence.

The figures of speech, as Romm illustrates, include: metaphors (Abraham Lincoln’s “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” is a masterful example), hyperbole (which Aristotle said is used by angry men), and chiasmus (Mae West’s famous line, “It’s not the men in my life, it’s the life in my men”).

With chapter headings like “The First Rule: Short Words Win” and “If You Don’t Repeat, You Can’t Compete,” Romm walks readers through the basics of good communication by busting myths and offering useful advice. For example:

The big myth about rhetoric is that rhetoric equals big words. If I were to wish but one point to stick with you here, it would be that short words are the best words. Short words win. Short words sell. In an era of snappy sound-bites and sexy slogans, the pitch must be pithy or the channel will be changed. “There is no more important element in the technique of rhetoric than the continual employment of the best possible word,” wrote a young Winston Churchill.

Given his day job, Romm continually connects back to the difficult task of communicating about climate change. “Those who deny the reality of climate science have made use of the best rhetorical techniques,” Romm said. “Those seeking to inform the public about the very real dangers of a warming climate will need to learn the lessons of the best communicators if they are to overcome the most well-funded disinformation campaign in history.” There’s plenty here to help scientists looking to become better communicators.

This insightful and important little book — it’s a concise 213 pages — comes at a time when, despite having more ways to communicate than ever, trust in what is being communicated stands at an all-time low. If rhetoric is king, then trust is God. And yes, that’s a metaphor.

Kindle page on Amazon

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/13/684321/heidi-cullen-romms-book-language-intelligence-is-insightful-and-important/

– Heidi Cullen is Vice President for External Communications and Chief Climatologist for Climate Central. 

Heidi Cullen, NYT: Clouded Forecast

Clouded Forecast


by Dr. Heidi Cullen, The New York Times, May 31, 2012

OUR ability to forecast the weather is in big trouble.

Last month, the National Research Council concluded that the nation’s system of Earth-observing satellites is in a state of “precipitous decline” and warned of a “slowing or even reversal of the steady gains in weather forecast accuracy over many years.”

This worrisome development puts all of us in harm’s way and should particularly trouble us as the annual six-month hurricane season begins today.

Gathering timely and accurate weather data is, of course, vital to saving lives. The deadliest hurricane ever to strike the United States hit Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killing as many as 8,000 people. Scientists had lacked the tools to predict the storm’s severity.

We have made tremendous progress in the accuracy of our hurricane forecasting (and overall weather forecasting) since then, much of it a result of government-owned satellites that were first launched in the 1960s and now provide about 90% of the data used by the National Weather Service in its forecasting models. Satellite and radar data and the powerful computers that crunch this information are the foundation of the weather information and images we get. Thanks to these instruments, for instance, the 5-day hurricane track forecast we get today is more accurate than the 3-day forecast from just 10 years ago.

These satellites also monitor volcanic eruptions, rising sea levels, melting ice sheets, the depletion of stratospheric ozone and ocean surface temperatures. Emergency beacons from aviators and mariners in distress can also be pinpointed by these satellites. Scientists who study the atmosphere and the ocean need continuous weather data to track large-scale climate variations (like El Niño) and long-term environmental trends like global warming.

Weather observations even bear on national security. Accurate wind and temperature forecasts are critical in deciding whether to launch an aircraft that will require midflight refueling.

But those capabilities, and our overall ability to monitor the planet, are slipping. The causes identified by the research council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, are many: technological failures, cost increases, changes in Congressional and administration priorities and — above all — the failure to devote adequate resources. For example, the annual budget for NASA’s Earth Science Division has fallen to below $1.5 billion from about $2 billion a decade ago, far below what scientists agree is needed.

The new report found that the number of actual and planned satellite missions could decline from 23 this year to only 6 in 2020, reducing the number of Earth-observing instruments in space from 90 now to about 20 in 2020.

To make matters worse, in the last three years, two Earth-observing satellites costing more than $700 million failed to reach orbit and crashed into the ocean.

In its May report, the council warned of a “coming crisis” in which “our ability to observe and understand the Earth system will decline.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which includes the National Weather Service, expects a data gap of at least 12 months, beginning in 2017, between the time one satellite crucial for accurate weather forecasts and warnings stops functioning and its replacement is up and running. Without such data, the Weather Service would have been at a serious disadvantage sizing up the dangerous snowmaggedon blizzard of 2010 that paralyzed the East Coast. Forecasters would have underestimated the snowfall by 10 inches, according to the Weather Service.

We live on a small planet with increasingly big problems. Extreme weather, climate change, population pressure and the depletion of our natural resources are all expected to worsen in our lifetimes. This is not the time to take our eyes off the planet we call home.

[ENVISAT stopped working this year, meaning I have no eye in the sky on the Greenland ice sheet changes, anymore.]

Heidi Cullen is a scientist at Climate Central, which communicates scientific findings to the public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opinion/earth-observing-satellites-in-jeopardy.html

Heidi Cullen discusses extreme weather and climate on NPR

From Rantman:

Some very intelligent discussion of recent weather.   Heidi Cullen, author and climate scientist from the weather channel.    Direct discussion starts about 7:30 minutes into the interview.   Climate change driving weather anomalies.

Weather Warnings For A 'Climate Changed Planet'

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Fresh Air from WHYY

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July 25, 2011

This summer of record breaking heat followed a spring that brought some of the most extreme weather on record. Climatologist Heidi Cullen writes, "It's time to face the fact that the weather isn't what it used to be."

Cullen is the author of the book The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and other Scenes from a Climate Changed Planet, which has just been published in paperback. She's a senior research scientist with Climate Central, a journalism and research organization.

Cullen talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about how climate change appears to be creating extreme weather in winter and summer. She'll also discuss a couple of the cities likely to be the most vulnerable to extreme weather.

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/25/138601271/weather-warnings-for-a-climate-changed-planet

Heidi Cullen, NYT: Sizzle Factor for a Restless Climate

Sizzle Factor for a Restless Climate

By HEIDI CULLEN

Published: July 19, 2011

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• Times Topic: Global Warming

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• Editorial: Blame Congress (July 20, 2011)

The answer is probably no if you live in Abilene, Tex., where temperatures have been at or above 100 degrees for 40 days this summer. It’s been a little cooler in Savannah, Ga., where the mercury hit 90 or more for 56 days in a row. Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma are coping with their driest nine-month stretch since 1895.

Yes, it has been a very hot summer after one of the most extreme-weather springs on record. It’s time to face the fact that the weather isn’t what it used to be.

Every 10 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recalculates what it calls climate “normals,” 30-year averages of temperature and precipitation for about 7,500 locations across the United States. The latest numbers, released earlier this month, show that the climate of the last 10 years was about 1.5 degrees warmer than the climate of the 1970s, and the warmest since the first decade of the last century. Temperatures were, on average, 0.5 degrees warmer from 1981 to 2010 than they were from 1971 to 2000, and the average annual temperatures for all of the lower 48 states have gone up.

For climate geeks like me, the new normals offer a fascinating and disturbing snapshot of a restless climate. The numbers don’t take sides or point fingers. They acknowledge both powerful natural climate fluctuations as well as the steady drumbeat of warming caused by roughly seven billion people trying to live and prosper on a small planet, emitting heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the process.

Even this seemingly modest shift in climate can mean a big change in weather. Shifting weather patterns influence energy demand, affect crop productivity and lead to weather-related disasters. In the United States, in any given year, routine weather events like a hot day or a heavy downpour can cost the economy as much as $485 billion in crop losses, construction delays and travel disruptions, a recent study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research found. In other words, that extra 1.5 degrees might be more than we can afford.

And while the new normals don’t point to a cause, climate science does. Drawing from methods used in epidemiology, a field of climate research called “detection and attribution” tests how human actions like burning fossil fuels affect climate and increase the odds of extreme weather events.

Heat-trapping pollution at least doubled the likelihood of the infamous European heat wave that killed more than 30,000 people during the summer of 2003, according to a study in the journal Nature in 2004. And if we don’t ease our grip on the climate, summers like that one will likely happen every other year by 2040, the study warned. Human actions have warmed the climate on all seven continents, and as a result all weather is now occurring in an environment that bears humanity’s signature, with warmer air and seas and more moisture than there was just a few decades ago, resulting in more extreme weather.

The snapshots of climate history from NOAA can also provide a glimpse of what’s in store locally in the future. Using climate models, we can project what future Julys might look like. For example, by 2050, assuming we continue to pump heat-trapping pollution into our atmosphere at a rate similar to today’s, New Yorkers can expect the number of July days exceeding 90 degrees to double, and those exceeding 95 degrees to roughly triple. Sweltering days in excess of 100 degrees, rare now, will become a regular feature of the Big Apple’s climate in the 2050s.

The next time NOAA calculates its new temperature normals will be in 2021 — when there will be about another billion people on the planet. Lady Gaga may no longer be hot. But the climate almost surely will be.

Heidi Cullen, a scientist at Climate Central, a journalism and research organization, is the author of “The Weather of the Future: Heat Waves, Extreme Storms, and Other Scenes From a Climate-Changed Planet.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/opinion/20cullen.html

Heidi Cullen on tornadoes, extreme weather and the "C"-Word

by Joe Romm , Climate Progress, June 4, 2011

Our guest blogger is climate scientist Heidi Cullen.  This was first published at HuffPost.  My comments are inserted in brackets.

UPDATE:   See the featured comment from Richard Brenne at the end.  And Cullen herself has posted in the comments section.

My phone tends to ring a lot more when the weather is bad. I often get calls from reporters and producers who usually ask me the same question a bunch of different ways. “Is this global warming?” “Is climate change to blame?” “Is the weather getting worse?”

These are big — almost existential — questions. I suspect they are a polite way of asking, “Is this our fault?”

Climate scientists approach the question a little differently. We want to test how global warming shifts the odds of a severe weather event. Just like medical researchers do with cigarette smoking and lung cancer. In fact, this line of climate research comes straight out of epidemiology. In essence, we’re doing autopsies on extreme weather events to find out what made them so bad-ass.

Depending on the type of extreme weather event, my answer can be short or long, straightforward or complicated. Keep in mind, all weather is now born into an environment that is warmer and moister because of man-made greenhouse gas pollution. But we don’t always know what influences (man-made or natural) will win out on any given day.

Events like droughts, wildfires, heat waves and heavy downpours get my short answer. We know they are going to become more frequent, more intense, and last longer. In fact, we can already see this playing out in historical data. (For a complete overview, check out the “Global Climate Change Impacts in the US” as well as some newly published research summarized here.)

[Joe Romm:  For a review of the recent scientific literature, see "Two seminal Nature papers join growing body of evidence that human emissions fuel extreme weather, flooding that harm humans and the environment."]

Tornadoes get the long answer. Will they become more frequent, more intense? Will Tornado Alley get bigger? Will the season last longer?

Jeff Masters and Andrew Freedman have both done a great job laying out the state of the research.

The bottom line is that two of the key ingredients that go into making a tornado are expected to change as a result of global warming — water vapor (moisture in the atmosphere) and wind shear (changing wind speed and direction with height). Thanks in part to warmer oceans, water vapor has already increased about 4% and it will continue to increase as the planet warms — providing more fuel for storms. But wind shear may decrease and that could mean fewer tornadoes. So which influence wins out — increasing water vapor or decreasing wind shear? We don’t know yet.

[Joe Romm:  For a longer look at the climate-tornado science, see "Tornadoes, extreme weather, and climate change."]

But even though we don’t have all the answers — and maybe never will — we do know enough to act. And that is really the bigger point, the one I try to bring home when the phone rings. The recent National Research Council’s “America’s Climate Choices” report advised Congress that we know enough to get started on preparing for climate change and preventing the most severe consequences, and we need to get started right away. Almost anything we do to protect ourselves in the future from this hotter world we’re creating, will also protect us right now from many of the extremes Mother Nature throws at us. We can’t afford to wait.

Yet, despite this recent report, and despite all we do know about climate change, the topic has become the C-word in Washington, D.C. Just as the term “global warming” fell out of favor, the term “climate change” is now one that few in our nation’s capital dare bring up in conversation, much less in legislation. Budgets for climate research have been threatened, and now a nominee for Commerce Secretary is garnering opposition in large part because of his stance on environmental issues, including global climate change.

As the people of Joplin, Missouri, begin the slow, painful process of rebuilding their lives — a new wave of extremes is making headlines. A state of emergency was declared in Massachusetts on Wednesday after rare and powerful tornadoes ripped through the city of Springfield and smaller towns nearby. At the same time, long-standing temperature records fell as a wall of heat blanketed the eastern half of the country — Washington, D.C., set a new daily record high of 98 °F — busting the old record that dated back to 1895. Hurricane season also started this week and forecasters expect it to be busier than usual. And I’m here ready for the phone to ring again, so that I can tell you one more time that if we do nothing to adapt and reduce our greenhouse gas pollution, things will only get worse… and yes, it will be our fault.

Heidi Cullen is a climate scientist at Climate Central (www.climatecentral.org) — an independent, non-profit journalism and research organization. She is also a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University and the author of "The Weather of the Future."

Related post:

• Joplin disaster spurs media whirlwind on link between climate change, extreme weather, and tornadoes

Featured comments:

Featured Comment from Richard Brenne, a leading climate communicator and long-time commenter:

Well done Heidi! I especially like your comment about tornadoes. We’ve discussed that quite a bit here beginning with the April 27 outbreak in Alabama, with Joe’s link the most complete discussion I’ve seen.

Many of us try sample quotes here, and here’s mine: “Every weather event is now influenced by global warming in one way or another, and this trend is intensifying. In approximate order, record high temperatures of all kinds are increasing, as are heat waves, droughts and dramatic precipitation events of all kinds, including snow where and when it is cold enough to snow. Hurricanes and tornadoes are more complex, but when conditions are right higher sea surface temperatures alone are enough to intensify them. This combined with 4% additional water vapor in the atmosphere and far greater energy in the system has created storms like those we’ve seen within the last year in Pakistan and Australia that are unprecedented in the human written record. With 40% more water vapor in the atmosphere possible by 2100, this century would see storms no human can now imagine, dwarfing every storm of every kind we’ve seen so far.”

Brenne is an award-winning screenwriter who teaches a NASA-sponsored, on-line, Global Climate Change class, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Committee to Improve Climate Change Communication, and produces documentaries and large-scale town meetings and panels about climate change that he moderates with humor and insight.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/06/04/235903/heidi-cullen-tornadoes-extreme-weather-c-word/

Heidi Cullen on The Colbert Report discusses her book, "The Weather of the Future"

Heidi Cullen on The Colbert Report discusses her book, "The Weather of the Future"

by Climate Central, August 26, 2010

Heidi Cullen, Climate Central's CEO and director of communications, appeared last night on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" to discuss global climate change and her new book, "The Weather of the Future." In the interview, she mentions the worldwide extreme heat records set so far this year, including the heat wave in Russia and related decline in their wheat yield, as well as the devastating flooding in Pakistan.

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Link to video:  http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/351587/august-25-2010/heidi-cullen

Link: http://www.climatecentral.org/breaking/blog/climate_central_on_the_colbert_report