On Sunday, this blog received an instructive (and anonymous) comment that accidentally landed in the spam folder. It’s from someone who works in U.S. state government on water-related issues (likely in the West). The comment is part of this thread, which was lively until all the typical jousting and preening by combatants overwhelmed it. I’m…Continue Reading…
I have a modest proposal: let’s get Paul Ehrlich and Stewart Brand on tour. If we want to have a real debate on how to address climate change, decarbonize energy, feed the world, etc., let’s get these two icons of environmentalism together, on the same stage, at college campuses, town halls, and YMCA’s. Because Ehrlich…Continue Reading…
In recent days, I’ve been conducting Q & A’s via email with authors of The Hartwell Paper, a provocative essay that lays out “a new direction for climate policy.” Today’s interview is with Hartwell co-author Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and whose new book, The Climate…Continue Reading…
Since Last November, Georgia Tech climate researcher Judith Curry has criticized the groupthink tendencies of a subset of the climate science community. So I’m not surprised to see her echo this sentiment by William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University, in his recent congressional testimony: We need to establish a Team B of…Continue Reading…
In the zero-sum climate change debate, there’s not much political space to discuss stopgap measures that would go a long way towards addressing climate change now. Take the issue of black carbon (also known as black soot), a noxious pollutant in developing countries that emanates from inefficient cooking stoves. Here’s a revelatory passage from a…Continue Reading…
Several weeks ago, a varied group of distinguished scholars released a provocative treatise, called The Hartwell Paper: A new direction for climate policy after the crash of 2009. It got a decent splash of media coverage. The Economist wrote an excellent overview and analysis. The BBC’s Richard Black posted a respectful and mildly critical review….Continue Reading…
UPDATE: Do check out the dynamic comment thread, where Andy Revkin makes a confession (and also a tart observation on journalistic peer review); John Fleck calls out a frequent critic of the science press; and Judith Curry corrects some blogospheric “misconceptions” of the media’s coverage of climate issues. Let me make this quick, because according…Continue Reading…
UPDATE: Skeptics are still grousing about RPJR, but he’s still taking it all in stride. And now, it appears that Steve McIntyre is with Roger on this one, much to the disappointment of Climate Audit fans. Sometimes I think Roger Pielke Jr. is like Spock. His logic is often unassailable but it can leave people…Continue Reading…
There’s an intriguing, somewhat dispiriting profile by David Owen in the current New Yorker ($ubscription) of an idealistic, enviro-minded inventor who wants to do good in the world, but is having a hard time overcoming the “limits of innovation.” The subject of the piece is Saul Griffith, who as recently as 2004 was a Ph.D….Continue Reading…
I’m a little late to this Wired profile on Energy Secretary Steven Chu, since I just started reading the May issue last night. For hardcore Chu watchers, probably not much is new, but the piece by Daniel Roth is still worth a read, if only to be reminded that the battle against global warming is…Continue Reading…