We have recently asked people to register as a less subtle way of encourgaging people to post under their own identities.

In particular, the commenters who go by Eli Rabett and Dano continue to submit anonymous posts despite our intentions. Both are welcome to participate, but only under their real names. Anonymous posts from these two will continue to be deleted. This is how we have decided to operate our weblog, and we respectfully ask that you follow these guidelines or comment elsewhere. I do not expect to continue discussing our comment policy, and we will simply delete those comments that do not follow the spirit of our guidelines.

If for some legitimate reason anyone desires to post a comment anonymously, then you can email a comment to Kevin or I noting as much and we will be happy to share your comment on the blog.

Thanks all.

Gregg, Welcome to the NSH Club!

In the New York Times today, author and commentator Gregg Easterbrook renounces his “climate skeptic” credentials in favor of accepting that there is a consensus on climate science. This qualifies him for membership in the burgeoning club of non-skeptic heretics (NSH). Here is an excerpt from Gregg says in his op-ed:

Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I’m now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert.

But what is it that I mean by “non-skeptic heretic”? These are people who accept the science of climate change but do not engage in meaningless exhortations or bland political statements, and instead openly confront some of the real but uncomfortable practical challenges involved with reducing emissions and adapting to climate. Easterbrook writes,

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With Barry Bonds under the specter of steroids allegations on the brink of passing Babe Ruth in home runs, on another subject of sports and technology Arthur Caplan has a thought-provoking op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News about a new effort to classify sleeping in oxygen tents as a doping violation. He writes:

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A reminder following several emails: If you want to comment you will need to register (click the link from the comment page).

The site remains unmoderated for registered users. We won’t be moderating comments from those who are unregistered.

From today’s New York Times:

“People didn’t die because the storm was bigger than the system could handle,and people didn’t die because the levees were overtopped. People died because mistakes were made and because safety was exchanged for efficiency and reduced cost.”

Raymond Seed, University of California at Berkeley

Prof. Seed is the lead author of a report released yesterday on Hurricane Katrina. The NYT covered the release of the report in this article yesterday.

In an ABC News story on changing hurricane intensities NCAR scientist Greg Holland asserts,

“Remember, for each 10 mph increase of wind speed,” says atmosphere scientist Greg Holland, “there’s about 10 times more damage, and 20 times more financial loss.”

There are those who argue that damage is proportional to the sqaure or even the cube of changes in wind speed, but no one I am aware of who argues that there is a factor of 10 or 20 per 10 mph. This would equate to a difference of 10^8 or 10,000,000 times more damage beween a category 1 and a category 5 (i.e. from 75 mph to 155 mph).

Empircally, when we look at normalized hurricane damage over the past 106 years, we find about 100 times more damage in category 4/5 storms than category 1.

With Munich Re, we are co-organizing a workshop this week outside of Munich that will bring together experts from around the world to deal with two questions:

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We’ve activated the sign up function for posting comments on Prometheus. It takes about 2 minutes and need only be done once.

Here is is the sign up link. We hope that you’ll sign up and participate in discussions. Should you have any trouble signing up or commenting please send me an email: pielke@colorado.edu.

Thanks!

The New York Times has an op-ed today that makes a point that we’ve been arguing for a long time:

Clearly, it’s time for some radical ideas about solving global warming. But where’s the radical realism when we need it?

Is this evidence that mainstream discussion of climate policy is beginning to reflect the realties of the impoverished political debate narrowly focused on science and largely irrelevant policy options? Lets hope so.

All- 99% of our commenters are respectful and thoughtful. We have had a recent increase in nasty comments, and today a somewhat threatening and disturbing comment, from an anonymous commenter named Eli Rabbett who even after several requests from Kevin and I has continued this pattern of behavior.

Unfortunately if these posts continue we will likely have to go to a registration-based comment policy, to ban certain URLs from commenting if they refuse to follow our rules, or publicly expose the identities of anonymous posters who engage in such behavior (and yes, we will). We do not want to go down this route, and would prefer an open site and to allow anonymous comnents.

We respectfully ask that all commenters here help to enforce the comment policy and that we all engage in respectful discussions, even on topics that we disagree about. That is the value of the site, and it would be a shame to see it suffer because of the efforts of very few.

For the immeediate future, Kevin and I will ruthlessly delete any comment deemed out of bounds as we see fit. For just about everyone, this doesn’t matter. For those few others, keep it respectful and substantive, and you are welocme to participate.

Thanks!