Monthly Archives : June 2011

Why Climate Change Loses Out to Sex and Scandal

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist:

Romenesko Chum

He’s a talented provocateur who sometimes smokes his own exhaust. That artful putdown of Jeff Jarvis is sure to be sniffed out by journalism’s eminent aggregator. In his response, Jarvis seems reflexively defensive, but I agree with him here: I dare to question the assumptions about the forms of news and journalism…I believe it is…Continue Reading…

You'll Never Guess His Occupation

He now spends his days in church basements, government meeting rooms, street corners and scrubby city parks. He is involved in projects to build playgrounds, install urban gardens, reinvent schools, create neighbourhood associations and document the religious life of the city, among others. A fascinating story of a fascinating project.

Beware of Green Tyranny

That’s the theme of this bizarre confab soon to roll into Los Angeles. Featured speakers include numerous climate skeptics, such as Lord Monckton, Benny Peiser, and Richard Lindzen. The organization sponsoring the conference, the American Freedom Alliance, has a few other other notable obsessions.  Leo Hickman at the Guardian reports that the group has promoted…Continue Reading…

Is Friedman No Longer in Love with His Lexus?

Is Thomas Friedman, the influential, globe-trotting NYT columnist, undergoing a metamorphosis? Because I think the guy who was a champion of economic globalization a decade ago is not the same guy who wrote this column earlier in the week, which is mostly a platform for Paul Gilding, author of a new book called, “The Great…Continue Reading…

The Love Affair with Climate Disasters

In recent weeks, disaster porn has mutated with concerns about climate change to produce an orgy of writhing, conflated arguments. People, I know you have a lot of pent-up frustration. It’s been a rough couple of years: a global recession, climategate, the failed promise of Copenhagen and Obama. I know how you’ve been yearning for years…Continue Reading…

True Skeptics

Can people who doubt the phenomena of biological evolution be persuaded by a better demonstration of the evidence? Alan Rogers, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, thinks so. He has authored a newly published book called, “The Evidence for Evolution.” Rogers discusses what motivated him to write the book in this release by Lee…Continue Reading…

Game Over?

Over the weekend, NASA climate scientist James Hansen wrote on his website (my emphasis): The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now.  If this…Continue Reading…

Loyalty Oaths

The climate debate is so politicized that rational dialogue is virtually impossible between warring sides. A complicating factor is that there are also hostile camps within the same factions. The climate blogosphere, in particular, is like the island in Lost, where the plane-wrecked survivors had to constantly determine who was on which side. (I loved…Continue Reading…

What Do Greens and Mothers Have in Common?

It drives my mother crazy that I won’t take a multi-vitamin. The woman raised me on a steady diet of Ring Dings and Yoo-hoos and now she knows what’s best for my health. I get the mantra every time she visits: “You’re run-down, you don’t get enough sleep, you need to take a multi-vitamin.” “Yeah,…Continue Reading…