Don Shelby (I love this guy): Why I never want to cover politicians

Why I never want to cover politicians

by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, March 13, 2012

REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Politicians will say almost anything to get elected.

Thirty-three years ago I was hired to work at WCCO-TV. The man doing the hiring was one of the great journalists turned out by the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism. Ron Handberg is an imposing figure today. The veins in his forehead still bulge when he sees bad journalism. It was love at first sight.

At the conclusion of our interview, Ron said: “Is there any area of news you won’t cover?”

“Yes,” I said.

His brow knit. He raised an eyebrow. The vein in his forehead turned blue and seemed to throb.

“I won’t cover politics,” I said.

He was aghast. He shot back, “Why, in the hell, not?” 

I began to wriggle in my seat. I could see the possibility of working for the vaunted WCCO-TV and sitting near the legendary Dave Moore slipping away. I tried the truth. Handberg, as the legend went, loved the truth more than anything.

“Because,” I said, “they are too conceited.”

If you are playing this scene in your head, this is where you place the very loud audience laugh track. Handberg stifled his own laugh, but he broke into a smile. I know what he was thinking. Handberg was thinking: “I have known you for one hour, and you strike me as the most conceited man I ever met.”

“I know that must seem odd,” I said. “But when a politician and I get near each other, our combined egos suck all the oxygen from the room.”

Handberg laughed. Handberg hired me on the spot.

The only time he assigned me a story involving a politician it was to try to put the politician in jail. Shortly after that, the I-Team was born.

The great politicians

Since those early days, I’ve come to admire some great politicians. I like politicians who stick to the facts. I was never a member of the cynics club who accepted as axiomatic that politicians would lie when the truth sounded better, just to get elected. I’m one of the few who read the latest polls showing little confidence in our elected leaders and feel the visceral urge to weep. A republic doesn’t stand long, history shows, when the governed think the government is a bunch of nitwits. Historians put the thought in better words.

Handberg came to understand that my cockiness didn’t stem from an inflated sense of myself, but from an ardent love of the truth, and its cousin, the fact. I usually feel like the stupidest guy in the room. That’s why I arm myself with facts. I believe in them, more than I believe in what I could come up with on my own. Like this: 2 + 2 = 4, and it really doesn’t matter how desperately we need it to be otherwise.

But I’ve seen politicians who would go before a community of people who believed 2 + 2 = 9, and tell them, with a straight face, that he supported their conclusion, and would, if elected, change all the math books to reflect their wishes. Tell the people what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. Journalists, in the drive to be popular, sometimes stoop to the same practice.

Which, at long last, brings me to my point. I dislike hubris. So did the ancient Greeks. It was, in fact, a crime. Roughly defined as extreme pride, hubris also has come to mean an absolute, unshakeable confidence in one’s own opinion, without regard to the facts.

(Side note: I don’t care about anyone’s opinion. I’m with Jefferson on this. An opinion is meaningless. What the framers were trying to protect was not just your opinion, but “the informed opinion.” If you have an informed opinion, you have my attention.)

So, I’ve been watching the politicians in this run up to the presidential elections. The hubris makes me dizzy. There are candidates who will tell you that the Earth is 6,000 years old. The only source for that revealed “truth” is a guy named James Ussher, who, in 1650 was the bishop of Armagh. He did the math and arrived at the conclusion that the world was created in 4004 BC.

That notion stuck around for a two centuries because, primarily, no one had a better idea. Then the science of geology was born, and now we have the unassailable evidence that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Never mind the facts. If there are voters who want the Earth to be 6,000 years old, there are plenty of politicians who will say: “I agree with you. Now, please vote for me.”

Global warming

But as you may have suspected, I am most saddened and angered by the hubris of candidates who say they know that global warming is a hoax. They know there are voters — and big-money contributors — who want to hear those words, so the politicians say them.

What is most puzzling is people fall for it. How can a person who spent his life making money and running for office or being a lawyer and running for office take on the body of knowledge we know as science? How can a personal opinion trump the laws of physics? How can a politician know more than 98 percent of all the climate scientists in the world? How can people buy it?

I am cocky, but this display makes me look meek. It makes the republic look silly to outside eyes. “Really?” they ask. “You voted for a guy who would promise to overturn the law of gravity — if you wanted him to?”

I don’t know if it is hubris. I can’t believe that one person who has no training can declare his opinion more important than the scientific world’s collected knowledge. My faith in humanity urges me to believe that if you wake one of these politicians from a sound sleep and asked the question, he would say: “Uh, of course I am making this up. How else am I going to get elected?”  

My hope is this: I actually hope the politicians are lying. And if they get elected, they can stop lying and govern based on known fact. Short of that, voters could decide that it is better to hear the truth than to be told what we want to be told. We could shake ourselves out of this political Stockholm Syndrome and come to realize that it is always bad to put a liar in a position of power over us.

It has taken three decades to make it clear to Ron Handberg why I never wanted to cover politicians. And in the end, I didn’t have to explain anything. The candidates have made my case exactly.

http://www.minnpost.com/environment/2012/03/why-i-never-want-cover-politicians 

Don Shelby: Probe into climate scientists' stolen emails gets serious

Probe into climate scientists' stolen emails gets serious

by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, December 20, 2011

The investigation into the stolen emails from climate scientists in 2009 has suddenly gotten quite serious. It shuffled along under the guidance of a small UK police force for two years. Now Scotland Yard and the U.S. Department of Justice have joined the hunt for cyber criminals.

In 2009 thousands of email from one of the most prestigious universities conducting global-warming science was hacked by criminals. I say criminals because stealing emails is a crime — a cybercrime. The Hadley Climate Research Unit (HadCRU) [small note: this is not exactly correct. HadCRU is a data set; there is no HCR Unit] and East Anglia University server’s firewalls were breached. [this is correct] The target was apparently a scientist named Dr. Phillip Jones.  Because he communicated by email with scientists all over the world, dozens of other scientists’ emails were stolen in the heist. Then, the hackers released most of the emails to the public.

uea.ac.ukDr. Phillip Jones

No one is exactly clear why it was done. There are theories. One suggests that opponents of the science, unable to disprove the findings, set out to embarrass the scientists themselves. Another theory suggests that fossil-fuel interests orchestrated the hack and timed the release of the emails to injure the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.

They are just theories. There are no facts to support them. Until last week, the investigation limped along conducted by the Norwich Constabulary, a small department. It is about to get exciting.

The press called it "climategate." Led by pro-fossil fuel and denialist bloggers as well as public-relations types working for industry supported think-tanks and foundations, the hungry scoop-crazy media reported the emails showed the climate scientists involved in criminal fraud, knowingly manipulating data and joining forces to keep contrarian science out of the major peer-reviewed journals. 

Probes launched
A half-dozen investigations were launched into the claims. All of them exonerated the scientists, all of them found no manipulation of the science. When the comments were put back into their proper context, the media did little to correct the impression it had created. So doubt about the science and the scientists lingers. The criminals won the battle. But the war is yet to be decided.  Fresh troops have just taken the field. I expect the criminals have broken a sweat.

This year another batch of emails (likely from the same theft, but held back) were dropped.  Much of the mainstream media had learned lessons from their rush to judgment in 2009.  Coverage was much more circumspect. They had learned apparently that reporting out-of-context chatter from stolen emails leaves scoop journalists with ice cream on their faces.

Agents in Great Britain have executed search warrants and seized equipment from anti-science bloggers who helped spread the stolen emails. The U.S. Department of Justice has sent letters to internet service providers and websites in the United States also involved in spreading the stolen emails. They are all being asked to maintain all evidence of any emails received from a shadowy source known as "FOIA."  "FOIA" was the chief distributor of the stolen emails. Norwich has called in the big dogs.

One of the world’s most famous climate scientists, Dr. Michael Mann at the University of Pennsylvania, communicated often with Dr. Jones at East Anglia. In the original reporting, Mann was often quoted, misquoted and taken out of context. Though the investigations have found he did nothing wrong, climategate has nevertheless hurt him.

Mann told me that the people who can’t abide the idea of global warming being true "have no legitimate scientific leg to stand on.  So, they have turned to criminal acts in an attempt to distract the public and policymakers." Dr. Mann is convinced that the criminal act shows the work of "industry-funded front groups and the individuals who do their bidding."

Cyber-terrorism?
The question is whether this can be characterized as a simple cybercrime -- or are there elements of cyber-terrorism involved? Bombing a building is an act of terrorism, but it is not the goal.  The goal, according to experts, is to terrorize, immobilize and destroy one’s sense of security.

schneier.comBruce Schneier

So I turned to one of the most respected cyber-terrorism experts in the country, Bruce Schneier.  Schneier has been called to testify before Congress. He is the author of eight books on the subjects of cryptography, warfare, crime and terrorism committed by cyber-criminals.

Schneier told me: "What I’ve been thinking about is whether the hack was intended to intimidate, threaten or bully. Then the crime becomes an effort to stop people from doing legitimate research. So, it is not just a data theft, but has a goal of creating a chilling effect, a threat, an intimidation."

Schneier understands the cyber world, but also the law of unintended consequences. "We are moving into a world in which everything we do is persistent," said Schneier.  By persistent, Schneier means it just doesn’t go away. "A phone conversation is actually archaic," he said.  "Today the conversation is by email or social media and those conversations are persistent."

If everything we say never goes away, it can be brought back and used to harm us. "Gotcha politics is a good example," Schneier says. "Record everything a politician says and find the two sentences he or she uttered to destroy them."

He quotes Cardinal Richelieu, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."

I asked Schneier if "persistence" makes us less willing to communicate. "As we move in a world of persistent conversations, the ephemera disappears," he said.

Ephemeral conversations
The ephemera he is talking about is the way we used to communicate — talking with one another.  The conversation is gone — it is ephemeral. "A lot of our privacy was incidental to the ephemeral nature of our conversations," he told me. "Two million emails were subpoenaed in the Microsoft trial. Not long ago those conversations would have been ephemeral. They would have been a chat in someone’s office."

Dr. Mann has long believed that intimidation was one goal of the cyber criminals. "They want to intimidate, stymie, harass scientists who are out in front on the risks of climate change, and they want to serve notice to other scientists of what will be in store for them if they speak out."

Schneier said: "How open would you be in conversation if you thought your words would be on the front page of the newspaper the next day?" It is a trend. We have moved, he said, into a new world where we are losing the natural privacy we once enjoyed.

Not only are our communications on the internet persistent, but so is memory. Dr. John Abraham, thermal scientist at the University of St. Thomas, told me: "Those crimes were used to fabricate lies about world-class scientists — lies that are still being repeated today."  

Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is still getting its shoes on."

I’m hoping the shoes Scotland Yard and the FBI are lacing up are track shoes.

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/12/20/33938/probe_into_climate_scientists_stolen_emails_gets_serious

Don Shelby: What it's like being a scientist in the GOP-led legislature (Minnesota state senator Kate Knuth)

What it's like being a scientist in the GOP-led Legislature

by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, December 8, 2011

After intense lobbying by Great River Energy, the compliant Republican-led state Legislature approved lifting the restrictions on coal-fired power plants. Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed the measure, but last-minute negotiations left in place a provision that allowed electricity from North Dakota's coal-fired Spiritwood plant to be imported into Minnesota.

Now, despite the political maneuvering, the Spiritwood plant is being shutdown. Great River Energy, which spent $437 million to build the lignite coal plant, says an unforeseen set of economic conditions in the energy field and customer base makes the project impractical to operate.

State Rep. Kate Knuth told me, "We spent a lot of time in the Legislature debating and passing the lifting of restrictions on the importation of coal fired electricity — just for this project."

kateknuth.orgRep. Kate Knuth

Knuth is in her third term in the Legislature. She is a DFLer from New Brighton. She voted against lifting the restrictions. Knowing her background, one has a right to have expected her opposition. She is a rare sort of politician. She is a scientist.

She is getting her doctorate at the University of Minnesota as a conservation biologist. Her science resume is full of interesting things. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Oslo and picked up her masters of science at Oxford. She currently coordinates the Boreas Environmental Leadership Program at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment.

Her knowledge of science, as well as her party affiliation, usually finds her in the minority. In her position on Energy Subcommittee, as well as the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Policy and Finance Committee, she is often disregarded by her Republican colleagues.

I asked her if she really liked it in that political kitchen.

"I'll tell you why I'm a politician," she said. "I think we need politicians who are willing to look at the evidence and think about our values and future. We need more politicians who are proud to be working together to create a better future." 

Ideology ahead of science
Politicians in Minnesota's Legislature and in the U.S. Congress grab headlines by openly taking positions against established science. According to Shawn Otto in his book "Fool Me Twice — Fighting the Assault on Science in America," politicians are putting party ideology ahead of scientific evidence.

 I asked Knuth whether she sees that at the Minnesota Capitol. "I don't think our elected officials are looking at the evidence clearly about the physical realities in which we live. To not look at that evidence is a disservice to the public. It can have serious consequences for our country and our world.

"Our national security depends on looking at the evidence and understanding it," Knuth adds.

As an example, polls continue to show that the majority of Americans believe there is still a scientific debate over global warming, while polls of published climate scientists show a 97 percent agreement that the planet is warming and humans are causing it by burning fossil fuels and poor land practices. 

Scientists have been trying to figure out what that is happening. More and more information is coming out showing a direct link between the anti-science political motives and contributions from the fossil fuel industry. It seems big oil and coal have better public relations agents than scientists. The belief in the idea that there is still a debate over the fundamentals of climate change has also been traced to fossil fuel front groups. Knuth says she and her colleagues regularly receive publications denying the science from the conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation, among others. 

'Politics requires patience'
I asked Knuth if she sometimes wanted to pull her hair out when she is forced to listen to her opponents in the Legislature misrepresent the known science. "Politics requires patience," she says. "The whole system is set up to allow huge numbers of politicians to deny physical reality."

Knuth says she hopes she can continue to have an open conversation with her science-denying colleagues. "I keep hoping we will see heroes emerge in this debate. Am I sometimes angry and frustrated? Yes. But I intend to work with individuals to help shift the system."

But is Knuth willing to take on Republicans on the battlefield of the economy? I asked her whether the scientific argument isn't falling on the ears of people who are only listening to news of an improving economy.

"If we don't have to go to other states and other countries for our fuel, that is a great economic advantage for Minnesotans," she says.

Knuth points out that Minnesota has no natural gas, no coal, no oil and no uranium. "But we do have abundant wind, a surprising amount of solar energy and a bunch of really smart people who want to go to work to build the next generation of energy," she says.

The opposition at the Legislature to renewable energy leaves Knuth puzzled. "So I don't get, as a legislator, why you would promote sources of power that we have to import from out of state, and send our money out of state, and be reliant on other places for our energy systems.

"If we can concentrate on energy-efficiencies and conservation," she says, "we don't have to build expensive, old technology power plants. That would be a savings for us in both the long and short term."

She adds: "I haven't even mentioned the benefits to our lakes and rivers and to our agriculture.  The health benefits of cleaner energy are an economic savings in itself."

Knuth is sometimes frustrated and angry as a scientist working among non-scientist politicians — but she is happy to be in the statehouse. "I don't think there is a better time to be a politician in this country than right now," she says. "There are big problems facing us, and we are being asked to come up with the solutions.  So while it is often frustrating, it is incredibly invigorating to be there. And when we turn it around, it is going to be really fun."

Kate Knuth says she believes in politics and leadership. She says, "I hope more young people see that being a politician is something they might strive for — and to see it as something noble."

I didn't have the heart to tell Rep. Knuth that her last statement was not based on the current state of the evidence.

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/12/08/33655/what_its_like_being_a_scientist_in_the_gop-led_legislature

Don Shelby: How will the media handle Climategate Version 2.0?

How will the media handle Climategate Version 2.0?


by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, November 23, 2011

In 2009, emails, apparently stolen, from the University of East Anglia's server were published in snippets. The emails were the private correspondence between some of the world's top climate science researchers. The blogosphere and mainstream media (MSM) picked up on the hacked emails and found words and phrases too delicious to pass up, or to attempt to understand and put them back into context.

And so, the world was treated to the private emails of some of the people who were part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and found what the writers believed was a shocking treasure. The emails demonstrated that the scientists sometimes disagreed with each other.

The media seized on words found in the emails, like "trick" and "hide the decline." Taken out of context, the words raised eyebrows and resulted in a loss of confidence in the climate change argument.

Five investigations were launched. Three of the investigations were conducted in Great Britain, where the University of East Anglia is situated. Two were conducted in the United States, where a number of the emailing scientists lived and worked. The result of each of the investigations found no scientific wrongdoing.

Some of the investigations suggested that scientists be more circumspect when communicating with one another. Don't be so critical of other scientists, they seemed to say. Don't blame the fossil-fuel industry funded obfuscators for your difficulties. Don't get angry at the thousands of requests for your research documents from those who seek to destroy your work. Don't, in other words, be so human.

Out of context
When the out-of-context words that had so jazzed up the Fox News Channel folks were put back into context, those words lost their punch. Nobody was trying to hide a decline from the public. In fact, the scientists had published their findings long before the emails were stolen. And the decline the scientists were talking about had nothing to do with the decline the reporters were talking about. My saddest recollection of the 2009 imbroglio is how awful the mainstream media handled the story.

You don't hear much about that "climategate" anymore. Now, the question is: How will the blogosphere and the mainstream media handle what is being called Climategate Version 2.0?

Apparently, the original hackers of the 2009 emails have dumped another 5,000 on the public. (A searchable database of the stolen emails can be found here.)

These emails seem to have been taken in the original theft and held back for some reason. (None of the new emails are more recent than 2009.)

I think I have an inkling of what that reason may be. The first stolen emails were made public on the eve of the Copenhagen summit on climate science. It seemed purposeful. This email dump comes on the eve of the global climate conference in Durban, South Africa.

Coincidence?  Its purpose, I am assuming, is to derail the conference and any agreements that might be made to curb CO2 emissions. Copenhagen wasn't a complete failure, but there weren't many successes, and the hackers might have popped the vodka in celebration.

I mention vodka, as opposed to champagne, since there is an oddity in this most recent email cache. Whenever a number in the thousands appears in the emails, the transcriber has inserted a period where most of us usually put a comma. Example: We write 237,532. They write 237.532. That kind of mathematic punctuation occurs most often in…get ready — Russia! It also is used all over Europe, but I wanted to see what it felt like to be hysterical.

Gold mine for deniers
I've read most of the emails. There is a gold mine there if you are an out-of-context kind of reporter. I'm not, particularly. The denier community is already at work. They have found certain words in the emails from which to make hay. There are several instances in which scientists use the word "cause," as in, your science is good for the cause. Deniers will say: "See. The scientists are trying to scare us into following their cause."

Or it could be that the scientists may have another cause in mind. My guess is that the cause they are supporting is knowledge over belief. Scientific fact over ideology. Proof over politics. Seems like a cause worth fighting for, to me.

As an outside observer of mainstream media these days, it will be interesting to see if the MSM learned any lessons from its egg-on-the-face rush to judgment in 2009. It appears, at first blush, the MSM has learned a lesson. Many outlets are openly critical of the hack, deliberate in their approach to the information, and looking for context.

The scientists have learned lessons, as well. They have learned that their natural paranoia is grounded in fact. There are people out to get them.

I wonder if the mainstream media can spare just one reporter to find out who in the world is trying to destroy the laws of physics and the scientists who abide by them.

I've got some free time.

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/11/23/33377/how_will_the_media_handle_climategate_version_20

Don Shelby: A video of Rep. Don Young every American should see

A video of Rep. Don Young every American should see

by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, November 22, 2011

On Nov. 18, 2011, the celebrated historian, Dr. Douglas Brinkley, testified before the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. The committee was taking testimony on another congressional effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil exploration and drilling.

Brinkley was there to suggest that the ANWR be designated a national monument, preserved and protected. Brinkley knows about conservation. Among his award-winning publications and best-selling books is "Wilderness Warrior" about Theodore Roosevelt's environmental policies. His most recent book, "The Quiet World," traces the history of Alaska's wilderness. He's currently writing a new history on the conservation movement in America.

After Brinkley delivered his testimony, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, walked into the hearing late. Please watch this short clip of what happened:

 

By way of full disclosure, Dr. Brinkley is a friend of mine, but had Dr. Brinkley been a stranger to me, I would still be mortified that a United States congressman would treat a guest of the House in such a fashion. I hope this piece of video is seen by as many Americans as possible. I shouldn't like people in other countries to see it. We still have an image to uphold in the world. Young makes it look like the most powerful nation on earth is run by the inmates of the asylum.

You may also notice that Dr. Brinkley doesn't suffer fools gladly. I talked to him about the confrontation. He told me: "I felt like I needed to hold my own against them. I feel good about it."

He continued: "I'm a historian and I read a lot of testimony. It is important to me to have an accurate record. I thought I needed to set the record straight for CongressmanYoung. My name is not Dr. Rice, it is Dr. Brinkley."

That is certainly part of it. It is likely, as well, that Brinkley had studied the history of Congressman Young before he arrived at the hearing. Brinkley told me he knew that Congressman Young, at another hearing, had waved a walrus penis bone at Mollie Beattie, the incoming chief of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Brinkley may have read the Rolling Stone article about Young that quotes the congressman as saying, "Environmentalists are a self-centered bunch of waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots." The quote continues, "[They] are not Americans, never have been Americans and never will be Americans."

I don't think Congressman Young would have dared say such a thing to Teddy Roosevelt's face.

Missed votes
Brinkley should not have been surprised that Congressman Young showed up late and missed the bulk of the historian's testimony. Young is often cited as the congressman missing more votes than any other member of the House. Brinkley would have known that Young was the co-sponsor, with discredited Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, of the bill to pay for the infamous "bridge to nowhere."

Brinkley told me: "Everyone knows that Young is just a menacing blowhard. He has a history of being rude, he browbeats and he's snotty toward anyone who cares about the environment."

I asked Brinkley if he was surprised that Committee Chair Doc Hastings took Young's side and continued lecturing the historian. "No," said Brinkley. "They are tied together at the hip. They are both oil company factotums. They are a tag team."

Had Young been in the room for Brinkley's testimony, he would have heard an interesting history lesson. Brinkley told those present that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had set aside the ANWR, and protected it the same way Ike had protected Antarctica. Brinkley is proposing that President Obama set aside the ANWR as a national monument using the 1906 Antiquities Act.

Dr. Douglas Brinkley

"Eisenhower created it as a refuge," Brinkley said.

So Brinkley suggests a new name and new status for ANWR. "I think it should be called the Dwight Eisenhower National Monument," he said.

But what about the oil?

According to the United States Geological Survey, there is a good deal of oil beneath the coastal plains of the ANWR. But there is, in relative terms, very little when compared to world demand. Pump it dry and it would be emptied in less than a year.

Another Republican congressman, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, always votes against drilling the ANWR. It makes him unpopular in the caucus room. But the old biology teacher-turned congressman doesn't object to drilling on environmental grounds. Bartlett told me that he votes against draining it now. He thinks it is smarter to save it for future generations who might need it, and use it more efficiently.

Bartlett doesn't think it is wise to pump the ANWR dry just to consume it in highly inefficient cars and trucks. Bartlett drives a Prius, which is another thing that drives the caucus a little crazy.

Same argument
Young chided Brinkley by saying that no one ever goes to the ANWR. Brinkley told me, "They used the same argument when considering whether to set aside the Grand Canyon. 'Nobody ever goes there,' they said."

The Grand Canyon is back up for debate, by the same forces who wish to open the ANWR for oil drilling. Congress is considering bills to open up areas near the Grand Canyon for uranium mining. It was being rushed through until someone noticed that the company doing the mining was from Russia, and no one had checked whether there were any safeguards preventing Grand Canyon uranium from going into Iranian nukes.

"Our park lands, our treasured areas are under attack," Brinkley told me. "We fought hard to protect these wild places and that makes the United States unique. China is destroying its landscape. We have a history of preserving ours."

Brinkley believes Young and his ilk have another reasons for going into the ANWR, and it has nothing to do with oil. "I think they believe," he said, "if they can open up the ANWR, molest it piece by piece, they will demoralize the whole environmental movement."

Brinkley believes, as Young has made clear, there are members of Congress who see people who would protect wild places as the enemy of the country. "The Coastal Plain of the ANWR has an unbelievably rich marine environment," Brinkley said. "It is where the caribou calve. It is where the polar bear den."

To Congressman Don Young's ears, such talk borders on treason.

Brinkley has a ready response. "Congressman Don Young is a low-grade Joseph McCarthy."

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/11/22/33335/a_video_of_rep_don_young_every_american_should_see

Don Shelby: Why I'm building an energy-efficient house

Why I'm building an energy-efficient house

by Don Shelby, MinnPost.com, November 15, 2011

The news broke last week that the world dumped 564 million tons of additional CO2 into the atmosphere in 2010. That is about 6 percent more than we released into the atmosphere in 2009.

So much for CO2 emission reduction efforts.

Dr. John Abraham

Human beings use the atmosphere as a public sewer, with no cost attached, yet. We dump into the sky 30 billion tons — 30 gigatons — of CO2 from fossil fuel burning each year. The number would be much higher if the calculation included deforestation and simple agricultural practices like plowing fields.

According to Dr. John Abraham, thermal scientist in the physics department of the University of St. Thomas: "This is really bad news. It means that the solutions available to solve this problem are going to be more costly. The good news is that we can solve this problem. The bad news is the longer we wait, the harder those solutions will be."

The additional amount stuck into the sky in 2010 is greater than any single country's total contribution, with the exception of China, the United States and India. It is a big jump and the jump puzzles and frightens scientists.

Source: Dr. John AbrahamCountries producing most CO2 compared to rise in total emissions

I've been reporting on global warming for a long time, and sometimes my reporting comes off quite preachy. I recognize that. I also know that when people preach, they are expected to walk the talk of the sermon.

Former Vice President Al Gore got into trouble after "An Inconvenient Truth," when it was reported that he lived in a 10,000-square foot, 20-room house with a yearly utility bill 15 times higher than most U.S. households.

Gore responded by saying he purchased "carbon off-sets" as a way to shrink his carbon footprint. People were right to cry foul, even though he invests in renewable fuels and pays extra to plant trees.

A new house
So, when I retired, my wife and I had saved enough money to build a home. We had never done that before. I know, I know. It is a terrible time to build a new home. I know it will never be worth what I'm putting into it. But I intend to live in it with my wife until our time comes. Payback and equity were not our first considerations.

Important to the two of us was that the house be as energy efficient as we could make it. It has been under construction for almost a year now, and we are told we can move in at the end of March. We'll sell the house we raised our children in for about 40 percent of its 2007 value. My timing has always been a little off.

The new house, in Excelsior, is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certified, the highest rating attainable. It is Minnesota GreenStar Gold rated, that organization's highest rating. It is now being rated for Greenpath, a program for energy-efficient design sponsored by the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC).

Building a house that will consume a fraction of the fossil-fuel electricity and natural-gas heating is more expensive than a code-minimum house. There is the solar and geothermal and the triple-pane argon windows. There's the post-consumer plastic pavers made from recycled materials, and roof shingles made of recycled tires, and wood floors that came from buildings and barns where the lumber was cut from the forest 100 years ago. We will retain rainwater in a cistern, rain-gardens and a water retention sink below the driveway.

Why in this economy would anyone spend more for a house than absolutely necessary? Some would suggest that I'm trying to avoid being shouted down while I stand preaching in the pulpit. Some could argue that I'm trying to avoid the dilemma of Al Gore and his embarrassment. Those may be benefits, but they are not the answer.

A stone sculpture
Outside my new home will be a stone sculpture. I'm not much of an art collector, but I will have a stack of granite in front of the house. The "art" is called an inukshuk. You say it "in-ook-shook." The inukshuk will sit outside my front porch. You will have to see it when you approach on the sidewalk.

Sometimes the structures are just cairns, or stacks of rock, and sometimes they look at a distance like humans. They are seen on the tundra of the far north, put there by the native peoples of the Arctic. The Inuit have used them for tens of thousands of years, and if you ever get a chance to travel to far north Alaska or the Canadian Arctic, you will see them. The inukshuk is on the provincial flag of Nunavut in far north Canada, the land of the people we in the south used to call Eskimo.

REUTERS/Stefano RellandiniAn Inukshuk statue in Whistler, British Columbia.

Symbolism has always been important to humans. Our new house is kind of a symbol. The inukshuk is a symbol. One can ask the question: "Why a new energy efficient house?" Or one can ask: "Why an inukshuk in the front yard?"

The answer is the same. If you ask, next March, why I built the house, I will point to the inukshuk. If you ask about the inukshuk, I will point to the house.

The Inuit people and their culture already are the first casualties of global warming. It is possible in my lifetime that a whole culture could disappear. I don't want that to happen. I've spent a lot of time with Inuit people, and they don't put much CO2 into the atmosphere. But the CO2 we put in the atmosphere is changing their lives and, perhaps, spelling their doom.

I think about the Inuit, and the people in sub-Saharan Africa, and the islanders of Oceana, and I wonder if I'm hurting them. My mother always told me to take responsibility. I was never very good at it. But sometimes you can't hide from it.

There is an axiom that you can't control what other people do, but you can keep your side of the street clean. Someday, when I'm gone, I'd like the Inuit to know that I tried.

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/11/15/33162/why_im_building_an_energy-efficient_house

Don Shelby: Why climate experts are using tougher language

Why climate experts are using tougher language

by Don Shelby, MinnPost, May 31, 2011

REUTERS/Jose Manuel Alvarez NievesGlaciers that crown the Iztaccihuatl volcano in Mexico could disappear by 2015 with scientists pointing to global warming as a chief cause of their demise.

A thermal scientist, a professor of meteorology, a certified genius on the planet's water and a journalist walk into a bar. The set up cries for a punch line. The reporter should end up the butt of the joke — unless the reporter keeps his mouth shut. Which I did.

It was a bar at 15th and U Street in Washington, D.C. The four of us had gathered after each of us, variously, had attended sessions at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the World Bank. Three of the four at the table were among the leading thinkers in America on global warming. There was Professor Scott Mandia, of SUNY's Suffolk College, Professor John Abraham at the University of St. Thomas, Peter Gleick, the founder of the Pacific Institute and a MacArthur "genius grant" recipient. And, the guy with his mouth agape was me. I kept thinking, "I should have paid more attention in class."

The three represented a small portion of the global-warming science community which had gathered to talk about why the message of human-induced global warming and its consequences was being overwhelmed by politics, and what scientists could do to make their findings clearer to the general public.

That would explain why I was at the table. I knew Professors Mandia and Abraham. I had been in San Francisco with them at the American Geophysical Union meeting. It was my first meeting with Dr. Gleick and I wanted someone to snap a picture of us so I could tell folks back home that I was hanging with a genius.

In a nutshell, Mandia knows about weather and climate, Abraham knows about the physics of heat and Gleick knows water. I know when I should keep my mouth shut. I strained a muscle in my neck fighting the urge to put in my two cents, but uncharacteristically, I managed silence and simply listened to the smart guys talk.

Noted scientists 
Since that evening, I've kept in close contact with the fellas, and with about a hundred other noted scientists working on global warming-climate change research. In that short period there has been a slight, but important, message shift. Instead of merely defending themselves against heavily fossil-fuel funded libertarian and conservative think tank scientists for hire, they are starting to counterpunch. It is not in a scientist's nature to throw punches, but sometimes that is the only way to get the bullies to get the message.

Scientists are often compelled by their education to tell you more about what isn't known than what is known. That intellectual and academic honesty allows critics to use the scientists' own honesty as a brickbat to pummel their work. As an example, for the past 20 years when reporters would call and ask whether this flood, or hurricane or that tornado was due to global warming, the entire scientific community studying the effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere would say, "No single event can be attributed to global warming." That is the truth, and climate change skeptics will use that honesty to say, "See, there's no detectible change." Now, the climate folks have toughened up that language.

It is an important linguistic shift, and it comes at a time more and more reporters are asking the question, because more and more record-breaking weather events are happening all over the world. In our country, Texas is drying up with one of the worst droughts in its history, massive tornado outbreaks in the South, in Missouri and Minneapolis, and the Mississippi is flooding again.

Peter Gleick says of the Mississippi: "There were multiple one-in-500 year or one-in-100 year flood events within a few years of each other. 1993, 2000, then again in 2008 and now in 2011."

Stronger language 
So now the scientists are making their language stronger. They explain, first, that the heating of the planet causes more evaporation, and more evaporation puts more moisture into the atmosphere, and that moisture has to come back somewhere. And, the crazy thing is, it isn't evenly dispersed as rain and snow. Sometimes it all comes down in one place, so to speak. Sometimes it snows in Atlanta, and sometimes there is no rain in Texas, and what should have fallen on that state gets moved to the Mississippi. Sometimes the moisture builds and combines with temperature shifts and gangs of tornados appear. More of them, and stronger than one would expect.

So, the National Academy of Sciences starts talking tougher, saying "increases of this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone," meaning this isn't natural, and suggests what we are seeing is only going to get worse.

Some people are calling it the "new normal." We, of course, are locked in on the tornado destruction in our neck of the woods, but this is a global problem. A 2004 study showed that "very dry land areas across the globe have more than doubled in extent since the 1970s." (Dai et al., 2004)

Another scientist I talk to from time to time is Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His scientific observations find that drought has increased throughout the 20th century while at the same time other studies show that extreme flooding, elsewhere, has increased over the same period. Weird.

So, scientists are changing the message. It is a subtle change, but important. When reporters like me ask the question, "Was the flood, or the drought or the tornadoes caused by global warming?" The scientists now respond, "No single event can be attributed to global warming, but we told you this was going to happen."

Every serious climate scientist can point to computer models put together years ago that predicted what has been coined as "weather weirding."

My friend Paul Douglas is fond of saying that "weather is like watching CNN, and climate is like watching the history channel." He means that you can't look out your window in Minneapolis and make a judgment on global warming. But, if you look out the window long enough and the weirdness continues, you just might see the evidence of climate change.

Some folks in Joplin and El Paso and Minneapolis are starting to believe what the scientists have been predicting for years. They see it out of their windows, if they have any left.

I grab a cab back to my hotel. When I get there I can't sleep. Two competing thoughts are keeping me awake. One thought is, "We are facing the fight of our lives!"The other thought is one I haven't had since I was a soldier. It is: "If there is going to be a fight, thank God I'm in uniform with these guys on point."

[And thank God you are, Don!]

http://www.minnpost.com/donshelby/2011/05/31/28716/why_climate_experts_are_using_tougher_language

Longtime Minnesota TV reporter digs into global climate change. After spending 32 years in front of the camera as an anchorman and investigative reporter for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Don Shelby wanted to apologize to people about climate change.

Longtime Minnesota TV reporter digs into global climate change

After spending 32 years in front of the camera as an anchorman and investigative reporter for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Don Shelby wanted to apologize to people about climate change.


by Naomi Yaeger, Duluth Budgeteer, April 23, 2011


After spending 32 years in front of the camera as an anchorman and investigative reporter for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, Don Shelby wanted to apologize to people about climate change.

“For those of you who are confused on this issue,” he said, “you’re forgiven. It’s my fault.”

Shelby was speaking at the University of Minnesota Duluth on Tuesday on what he called “The most important story since journalism began — global climate change.” His speech served as the kick-off for a two-day sustainability fair sponsored by UMD’s Office of Sustainability.

The TV newsman’s mea culpa about having misreported climate change came after of years of treating the story the same as he would any other, requiring the views of two opposing parties, Shelby told the packed lecture hall of the chemistry building.

But, he said, climate change is not a pro or con issue; it’s a scientific fact. And journalists who work to “balance” a story present an inaccurate picture when they give equal weight to sources promulgating inaccurate facts.

“If I report a story on abuse of children, I don’t go out and interview an abuser on the up-side of child abuse,” he said as an example of how an effort to balance can go too far.

“I’ve put the same technique of investigative reporting to the climate change. I had to learn science. This is really difficult stuff, so I had to go back to school.”

Shelby took courses at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, including statistics, chemistry and physics. Retired from WCCO television and radio work, he now reports online for Minnpost.com.

Shelby said that when he first began to report on climate change, much of the science was unsettled. Most of the “other side” coverage was really about those who disagreed over details of theory.

“When the science began to grow conclusively, the PR machines of the (right-wing and libertarian) think tanks … began to hire and sponsor scientists with pretty good credentials. Those scientists ‘cherry-picked’ information from massive studies and found fault with them. Rather than taking the intellectually honest approach and saying that the body and conclusions of the study were strong, they wished to show that the entire science was flawed.”

Shelby said he used the skills of any good investigative reporter and followed the money. “Once I began to trace back the source and the politics of that approach to science, it began to be clear that many of the same scientists were also on record as saying that acid rain was not a problem, that PVC and HVC did not damage the ozone layer, and, most ugly, was the cigarette smoke was not a carcinogen, and many of these scientists had been employed by the tobacco lobby. Things began to smell. I then started pointing out those facts.”

Mindy Granley, UMD’s sustainability coordinator, said Shelby was chosen to speak because he would be a draw as a respected reporter talking about climate change.

“Judging from the amount of people who showed up, (we were) right,” she said. “We want students to be informed and to be able to think critically about what they see in the media, so they don’t just believe … and ask the right questions.”

Granley said Shelby hit the mark.

“The goal of journalism is to be objective using the three-legged stool of fairness, accuracy and balance,” Shelby said. “I’ve put the same technique of investigative reporting to climate change,” he said.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/197145/publisher_ID/36/