When James Hansen, the newly-retired NASA scientist talks, people who care deeply about energy and climate change pay attention. For example, when Hansen says “game over” for the climate if Canada’s oil sands get developed, people take to the streets. When he publishes a study that says global warming has caused recent heat waves and…Continue Reading…
British newspaper journalism is an odd creature. The Daily Mail, as I discussed here, is a freakish beast that continues to willfully (how else to explain it?) mangle climate science and misrepresent climate scientists. Myles Allen is the latest victim of David Rose’s crazy-ass reporting on climate change. And yet what to make of Allen’s…Continue Reading…
Why do environmental debates almost always turn into polarizing slugfests? Well, such debates focus on problems identified as significant threats to the planet and human welfare. People fight over how big (or negligible) a certain threat is and what the solution should be. The fiercest battles are between people who have different values, which turns into…Continue Reading…
As someone who tracks environmental discourse in real time, I find it valuable to step back on occasion and look at how public attitudes are shaped. For that, I depend on the work of scholars. One book from 2008 that I’ve only just read explores how several major contemporary environmental themes have been expressed culturally,…Continue Reading…
I didn’t come of age in the 60s and early 70s, but I know my history. I know that the U.S. fractured over the Vietnam war and the Civil Rights movement. I know that Americans took sides on the home front and that this turned kitchen tables, universities, and streets into battle zones. Families and friendships…Continue Reading…
On Saturday, the International Herald Tribune (a global version of the New York Times) reported on its Rendezvous blog: “Environmental warning fatigue sets in.” The post was a quick summary of a new poll that reveals: Environmental concerns among citizens around the world have been falling since 2009 and have now reached twenty-year lows, according to…Continue Reading…
The state of humanity is getting better every day. On the whole, people are richer, healthier, and living longer than ever before. We are also a less violent species, it seems. Statistically speaking, my two boys, born in 2004 and 2007, can look forward to a nice long life. Several years ago, a Duke University demographer said:…Continue Reading…
Here’s a trick question: Is climate journalism slanted? Before you answer, let’s look at a series of tweets by atmospheric science researcher Ryan Maue, who clearly has an opinion on this. We’ll start with this one from today: Every AP story on weather starts fine then at end includes climate change advocacy … it’s “left…Continue Reading…
My eight year-old son is not a disinterested sports fan. He knows as much about European soccer as I do (which is zilch), but when we’re in a barbershop for 15 minutes and Manchester is playing Barcelona, he asks me who we should root for. Ditto for the NBA All-Star game, which I let him…Continue Reading…
When a social cause gains momentum and becomes symbolically important, partisans inevitably hijack it for their own ends. They do this by trying to define and control the meaning of the cause and how it should be perceived. We’re seeing this play out now with the Keystone XL pipeline, which has become a touchstone for environmentalists…Continue Reading…