Last week, after a second batch of climate science emails were publicly released, I got the sense that most science and environmental reporters assigned to cover the story were holding their noses. They dutifully reported the basics, but were not inclined to treat the latest disclosures as especially newsworthy, much less as a story with…Continue Reading…
If you’re following press coverage of the second wave of purloined email communications between climate scientists, you might have noticed that many in the media have turned their attention to the whodunit angle. This is very much a worthy story to pursue (which I’ll have more to say on in a few days), since the…Continue Reading…
The reaction thus far to the latest release of climate science emails (“son of climategate”) has played out along two tracks. Each has separate storylines. In the feverish precincts of the climate blogosphere, especially those in permanent battle mode, the response has been predictable. Anthony Watts is in full swoon and Marc Morano has turned on all…Continue Reading…
No doubt, regular readers have already heard the news. Lucia’s header is clever, but I like mine better. So the timing is obvious, of course, as Andy Revkin sardonically notes in a tweet. Richard Tol seems wearily perplexed: and here we go again — as if Durban isn’t dead enough During some back and forth…Continue Reading…
Governments of the world’s richest countries have given up on forging a new treaty on climate change to take effect this decade, with potentially disastrous consequences for the environment through global warming. Ahead of critical talks starting next week, most of the world’s leading economies now privately admit that no new global climate agreement will be reached…Continue Reading…
And they have a message: Researchers say they have found new evidence of prolonged drought in parts of the West, suggesting megadroughts are not the rarity Westerners would like them to be. Of course, there is already ample evidence for Westerners not to think this, but c’mon, who remembers what they had for dinner on Tuesday,…Continue Reading…
While I personally don’t use the term “denier” in my writing on climate issues, I’m not moved by the crocodile tears of many who claim to be offended by it. Why? Well, I could point to a few loaded, pejorative terms commonly used at popular climate skeptic websites. But to understand the hypocrisy I’m getting…Continue Reading…
Of all the rhetorical excesses associated with the climate debate, I find the overt Nazi/fascist/Holocaust allusions the most offensive. Both sides are guilty. Christopher Monckton, the darling of climate skeptics, has become notorious for his Hitler references and use of swastika imagery. It almost seems like a tic he can’t shake. In a similar vein,…Continue Reading…
I’m not sure whether Naomi Klein’s big cover story in The Nation qualifies as a stink bomb or as the kind of straight talk that will help cut through all the posturing and subtext in the climate debate. But I do know that its thesis will be devilishly seized on by one of the camps….Continue Reading…
Ben Smith at Politico has picked up on something that speaks to why the (temporarily) successful anti-Keystone pipeline protest is meaningful to the climate debate. Smith noticed this: Whatever the objectives of protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street, they have succeeded in engaging the country in a conversation about income inequality. A quick search of…Continue Reading…