If all the main players and policy instruments in the congressional debate over climate change were represented in a demolition derby, here’s what it might look like: In a brand new Lexus GS, a Democratic politician (Waxman-Markey) is behind the wheel, clumsily groping at an anorexic cap and trade bill in the front passenger seat….Continue Reading…
Environmentalism, for all its success, is still largely shaped by its elitist roots. It also remains a movement made up of upper-middle class whites, something leaders of established environmental groups had cause to lament after Obama was elected president. In recent years, scholars and journalists have written books on how this lack of racial and…Continue Reading…
Krugman goes to China and makes a stunning discovery: I have seen the future, and it won’t work. Seriously, though, the rest of his column effectively highlights–momentarily, at least–the grim specter hanging over the global warming debate, otherwise known as the “China problem.”
Are you having the same recurring nightmare, the one where you, WALL-E and Marc Morano (who is grinning maniacally) are the last inhabitants on earth? Does the sight of Bjorn Lomborg make you physically ill? Do you find yourself crying uncontrollably every time another chunk of the Antarctic ice sheet melts into the sea? If…Continue Reading…
Nothing bugs me more than when so-called progressives have their own litmus test on political issues. In the last two days, blogger Joe Romm has taken his fellow climate advocate, Jim Hansen, to the woodshed (see here and here), because of Hansen’s vocal opposition to cap and trade. One irony is that Hansen, in this…Continue Reading…
The riddle of EPA’s reluctance to consider soot a contributor to global warming has befuddled me since I read this story, which I thought made a solid case: While carbon dioxide may be the No. 1 contributor to rising global temperatures, scientists say, black carbon has emerged as an important No. 2, with recent studies…Continue Reading…
Mexico may still be in lockdown mode, but I suspect American fears of swine flu are ebbing. Alas, we may have only a short reprieve before pandemics starting hitting with regularity, warns epidemiologist Larry Brilliant in the WSJ weekend edition: In our lifetimes, or our children’s lifetimes, we will face a broad array of dangerous…Continue Reading…
Uh oh, looks like someone’s stuck in reverse. Must be a slow day on the global warming “media stunner” watch if Romm’s picking over a three-week old interview, as if it was a fresh scab. I guess he didn’t read part one and part two of this colorful memo from one of his Grist colleagues.
Still can’t fathom why global warming isn’t more of a bugaboo to the average American (unlike, say, a case of pandemic hysteria)? Read Nate Silver’s take on this survey conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change and George Mason’s Center for Climate Change Communication. The survey contains various permutations of questions and lots of…Continue Reading…
Discovery. You just never know what’s going to turn up during that pre-trial phase.