It’s not easy when you stop trusting particular sources of information. It tends to reorder your world. Oftentimes there’s a precipitating event that suddenly puts the source in a different (and unflattering) light. This appears to be the case for John Callender, a birder, computer programmer, and blogger. Callender is an avid consumer of climate media, particularly…Continue Reading…
Some time ago, a mischievous person who works in the environmental/science communication sphere brought something to my attention: Laurie David, the producer of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth documentary, apparently became bored with global warming activism and moved on to a new cause. Nobody says that green activists should remain tethered to one particular issue….Continue Reading…
Two seemingly disparate events this week underscore major shifts in the climate discourse–at least in the U.S. One is the defeat of Senator Richard Lugar in the Indiana Republican primary. The other is this NYT op-ed from NASA climate scientist James Hansen. What’s the connection? Well, each, in its own way, illustrate the newly established…Continue Reading…
Bud Ward, the editor of the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, weighs in on the Heartland billboard furor: What stands out amidst the initial widespread revulsion is that the criticisms of Heartland’s effort came not only by the usual cadre of what climate skeptics dismissively call “warmists,” but also by those ideologically…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: 5/7: Climatewire reports that Heartland “faces a mutiny” from donors and its Washington staff over the Institute’s billboard campaign, which it abruptly cancelled one day after it was unveiled. The billboards triggered massive outrage and scorn from across the political spectrum. [UPDATE: 5/5: Widespread condemnation of the Heartland billboard campaign (including from Republican politicians and well-known climate science critics) prompted…Continue Reading…
I know the environmental movement will have truly matured when the leader of a big mainstream green group can say something like this: We won’t meet the carbon targets if nuclear [power] is taken off the table. That’s from Jeff Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. Here’s the opening to the Guardian story: Combating climate…Continue Reading…
Is there an example from human history of a culture taking action with the intended beneficiaries being two or more generations downstream, when there’s no benefit or maybe even sacrifice to the current generation? I haven’t been able to come up with one, and I suspect we’re just not genetically programmed to worry about two…Continue Reading…
And you thought some of the rabid in the climate concerned community had it in for Roger Pielke, Jr. Check out the threat Roger apparently poses to climate skeptics over in this Bishop Hill thread. Fortunately, there is a voice of sanity among the rabble. Ben Pile at first tries to reason with the fire-breathers, who…Continue Reading…
As some might recall, the climate science community split into several camps in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I think similar fault lines are emerging in the global warming/severe weather debate. In my latest post at the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, I discuss this in the context of a popular new frame,…Continue Reading…
It’s a testament to James Lovelock’s standing in the science world that one phone conversation can trigger a media tidal wave. In case you’re just tuning in to the news, Lovelock has rejected his own prophecy on global warming, which he previously believed would soon kill off most of humanity and “leave the few survivors living a…Continue Reading…