Is Earth f**ked: At 2012 AGU meeting, scientists consider advocacy, activism, politics, and getting arrested.

Werner’s title nodded at a question running like an anxious murmur just beneath the surface of this and other presentations at the AGU conference: What is the responsibility of scientists, many of them funded by taxpayer dollars through institutions like the National Science Foundation, to tell us just exactly how f**ked we are? Should scientists be neutral arbiters who provide information but leave the fraught decision-making and cost-benefit analysis to economists and political actors? Or should they engage directly in the political process or even become advocates for policies implied by their scientific findings?
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Box is a prime example. A veteran Arctic researcher, Box was arrested alongside more than 1,000 others in 2011 outside the White House while protesting the proposed Keystone XL pipeline...

I asked Werner what he sees as scientists’ role in contributing to this kind of resistance, the kind of direct action taken by researchers like Hansen and Box. Werner views his own advocacy as separate from his scientific work. “To some extent, [science is] a job, and a job I really like, and I have the good fortune and privilege to have,” he told me. “In my other life, I am an activist, but there’s a line. Both sides inform the other. And I think that that is healthy. But when I’m doing geophysics, I’m a geophysicist. When I’m doing activism, I’m an activist.”

Maher: Send Koch bros a 'f--k you' - Kevin Cirilli - POLITICO.com

In a post Friday, Maher wrote: “Since we’re looking for new revenue streams that aren’t income taxes, Obama should use this budget crisis — if you can call it that — to do something about global warming with a carbon tax.”

He continued: “This may be his last and only chance to do something big since cap and trade didn’t work. And it would be just desserts for the oil and coal industries that went all in for Mitt Romney, a nice little personal f—- you to the Koch brothers.”

Twitter / climatebrad: Another good rule of thumb: ...

Another good rule of thumb: if scientists say "will happen by 2100", think "will happen by 2020".

Twitter / climatebrad: Good rule of thumb for ...

Good rule of thumb for interpreting #climate change research: if scientists say "could happen", think "will happen".

Dr. Hans Labohm On Scepticism In Europe: “The Tide Is Turning…Very Much Alive And Kicking”

The opening sentences set the tone in no uncertain terms. He calls the notion of dangerous manmade global warming a “delusion”, a science that has been plagued by “cherry–picking, spin-doctoring and scare–mongering by the United Nations’ IPCC and other climate alarmists.”