If you thought assigning attribution of individual weather disasters to global climate change was tricky business, imagine trying to establish a causal link between specific ecological problems and global warming. In this commentary in Nature Climate Change, ecologist Camille Parmesan and her co-authors suggest not going there. It’s not that they think global warming doesn’t adversely…Continue Reading…
Cleo Paskal, whose book I reviewed last year, has a smart piece on what’s being left out in risk assessments for energy installations: First, due to changing environmental conditions (sea level rise, subsidence, changing storm activity, etc.), historical records may no longer be reliable predictors for future risks. For example, the summer of 2003 was…Continue Reading…
A new study provides an interesting public opinion comparison between Canada and the U.S. Of the 11-page report, Tim Scolnick at Desmogblog says perhaps the most surprising feature is that in Canada, in spite of the fact that the Conservative Party has held power for just over five years, all the while opposing any action to cap…Continue Reading…
A “reformed climate skeptic” has just published an intriguing book, titled Deep Future, which this article calls the long, long view on climate change. I find the book’s purpose fascinating, given that we can’t see our way to thinking several decades ahead, much less thousands of years into the future. Still, I welcome this new dimension to…Continue Reading…
Some of the dead-enders in the climate change & communication debate don’t seem capable of recognizing their own bunk, even after it’s pointed out to them ad nauseum. So here we go again: we are looking at a bunk tsunami, and the press seems absolutely obsessed with finding little bugs on the other side (a…Continue Reading…
Among the putatively Republican interest groups that would seem to have the least pull with the GOP, I would include the Log Cabin Republicans and the Republicans for Environmental Protection. As Andy Revkin notes in his interview with the leader of the latter, This group, while holding to traditional conservative values, has positions on energy and…Continue Reading…
The normally level-headed Kevin Drum, who says “we now officially live in the era of guerrilla activism,” spots a trend. It started in the fall of 2009 with the infamous ACORN sting. Conservative activist James O’Keefe secretly recorded ACORN employees providing advice to a faux pimp who wanted to bring underage prostitutes into the country…Continue Reading…
Goes to Grist for this bit of scareploitation: Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like UPDATE: Tom Yulsman calls the Grist article “yellow journalism.” Kenneth Green at AEI calls it “shameless.” Many commenters at Grist–not trolls, but seemingly regular Grist readers–also find the piece offensive. UPDATE 2: In response (in the comment thread…Continue Reading…
Wishful thinking by Bishop Hill, or poor grasp of how things work in the U.S.?
A plea: If those who worry about what would happen if we burned all the fossil fuels and those who worry that we will blow ourselves up deciding a “˜fair and equitable’ distribution of those resources could just sit down and agree that burning fossil fuels is a problem, then maybe, just maybe a solution…Continue Reading…