Science
From Stephen Colbert to Steve Doocy: 7 Videos to Watch This Week
Published July 01, 2009 @ 05:55PM PT
1. The Colbert Report, May 7, 2009: Smokin' Pole - The Fight for Arctic Riches
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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Arctic nations rush to stake claims in polar territories, even though it clearly belongs to America -- Superman lives there.
2. Al Gore warns on latest climate trends
Al Gore presents updated slides from around the globe to make the case that worrying climate trends are even worse than scientists predicted, and to make clear his stance on "clean coal."
3. Bill McKibben: Fighting Climate Change in the Obama Era
Greenpeace UK has a chat over coffee with veteran US "environmental guru" Bill McKibben. McKibben has been agitating and organising to make governments take strong action on climate change for the past 20 years. Until there is a mass movement that both gives politicians the space to act, he believes, and forces them to do so, change will be halting.
4. Ray Zahab treks to the South Pole
Extreme runner Ray Zahab shares an enthusiastic account of his record-breaking trek on foot to the South Pole in January 2009 -- a 33-day sprint through the snow. Zahab broke the record for fastest unsupported trek across Antarctica, to raise awareness and money for kids' environmental education.
5. The American Denial of Global Warming
Why do some Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability? Or that scientists are still debating the point? Scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science. Via University of California
Television
6. The Daily Show, June 1, 2009: Bob Woodruff chats with Jon Stewart about global warming
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Experts say over the next hundred years the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results. On the eve of the broadcast of ABC's "Earth 2100" special, Bob Woodruff lays out the worst-case scenario for the future of civilization, and how we can act now to set a different course.
7. Fox News reports global temperature decline falsehood as if it's true
Several Fox News figures have used a purportedly "suppressed" EPA document to advance the falsehood that, in Steve Doocy's words, "for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping." More at Media Matters for America.
State your case on #ACES: Climate Pass or Climate Fail?
Published June 26, 2009 @ 08:51AM PT
Okay kids, get your ya-yas out: What's your opinion of the clean energy and climate change bill that's being debated in the House today?
Should it pass, or will it do more harm than good in stopping global warming? Will its' cap-and-trade provisions curb greenhouse gas emissions effectively, or have concessions to fossil energy and agriculture industry interests fatally weakened the legislation?
Note: As ever, courtesy toward fellow commenters is strongly encouraged. References to Nazis, or denials of the reality of global warming, will be deleted as troll posts.
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Image: View of the Sun from Baja California, during an eclipse on July 11, 1991. Source: NASA Earth Observatory
Best of the Blogs 2: Reasons to Be Cheerful About #ACES Climate-Energy Bill
Published June 24, 2009 @ 03:42PM PT
Climate bill puts Americans in the green (NRDC Switchboard)
Zen and the Art of Anxiety Maintenance: Why David Roberts is not freaked out about the Waxman-Markey climate bill. "There is no reason to think that this bill is going to be Obama’s only legacy on energy. Already there’s been the stimulus bill, which will probably do more for clean energy in the next five years than Waxman-Markey, the new mileage standards, and the big climate impacts report. And there is plenty more to come." Plus, cleantech is the iPhone to dirtytech's semaphores; green manufacturing jobs are the only ones out there to create, and we need 'em; and the states and cities will continue to believe. (Grist)
New EPA analysis of Waxman-Markey: Consumer electric bills 7% lower in 2020 thanks to efficiency — plus 22 GW of extra coal retirements and no new dirty plants (ClimateProgress)
How Waxman-Markey tackles climate change by saving forests (Grist)
And some other good news:
Wind Could Power the Entire World (Mongabay)
Wind Jobs Now Outnumber Coal Jobs (fortune.cnn.com)
Detroit car makers would increase profits by $3 billion annually and significantly boost sales if they improve the fuel economy of their vehicles by 30 percent to 50 percent, according to a new study. (Yale360)
Cassini Probe Finds Compelling Evidence of an Ocean on Saturn's Moon Enceladus (BBC News) [[Nothing to do with Waxman-Markey bill. It's just cool.]]
Best of the Blogs: Daryl Hannah and some NASA guy arrested at anti-coal protest
Published June 24, 2009 @ 09:59AM PT
Above: Video of yesterday's arrests at Coal River, via Rainforest Action Network's Understory blog
Today's random installment of Best of the Blogs features a number of news items that represent our sorry political progress, nationally and worldwide, on stopping global warming. It's astonishing, however believable, that this is the political status quo on climate change one decade into the 21st century:
Major Concession to Ag Industry in Clean Energy-Climate Bill (Stop Global Warming) [[Yes, my own post from last night]]
NASA Climate scientist James Hansen, celebri-green Daryl Hannah, others, arrested in Coal Country protest:
- Hansen of NASA Arrested in Coal Country (DotEarth - The New York Times)
- Live at Coal River—mass arrests against mountaintop removal (Grist)
A warning from Copenhagen: Earth's surface heating faster than expected, and we're not doing near enough to stop it (Real Climate)
Senate Panel Trims Interior-Epa Budget From House Levels (Greenwire) [[Cutting the budgets for these agencies just as we need to get real about saving forests, regulating carbon? Yup. Not a blog, but I cannot find coverage anywhere else so far]]
A few takes on Russia's climate blindness:
- Russia’s Do-nothing Climate Plan (Environmental Capital - The Wall Street Journal)
- Russia: Carbon dioxide emissions up 30% till 2020 (Global Voices Online)
- Russia to be Particularly Screwed by Climate Change (Treehugger)
Shame on the New York Times for running ExxonMobil’s greenwashing ad once again — they can’t plead ignorance this time, only greed (the ever-verbose Climate Progress)
Supreme Court Clears Way for Mining Company to Destroy Alaskan Lake (Climate of Our Future) [[An eternity's wilderness lost for a moment's energy mined]]
Obama Urges Passage of House Clean Energy-Climate Bill
Published June 23, 2009 @ 10:28AM PT
President Obama opened his press conference this morning with an explicit endorsement of the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill, which as of yesterday evening was being blocked by rural Democrats who want the USDA, not the EPA, to oversee programs that would "pay farmers to conduct environmentally friendly conservation practices."
Hard to say at the moment if this is a direct response to calls for him to take personal lead on climate action legislation, like this week's open letter signed by 20 U.S. climate experts.
Stay tuned to see if or how this shifts the situation in the House of Representatives. Whups -- the situation shifted late late last night -- read my next post.
The president's comments this morning, as prepared:
This week, the House of Representatives is moving ahead on historic legislation that will transform the way we produce and use energy in America. It is legislation that will finally spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.
This energy bill will create a set of incentives that will spur the development of new sources of energy, including wind, solar, and geothermal power. It will also spur new energy savings, like efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer.
These incentives will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. And that will lead to the development of new technologies that lead to new industries that could create millions of new jobs in America - jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.
At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe. It also provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the gradual transition to clean energy technologies.
This legislation is extraordinarily important for our country, and has taken a great effort on the part of many over the course of months...
We all know why this is so important. The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy. That is what this legislation seeks to achieve - it is a bill that will open the door to a better future for this nation. And that is why I urge members of the House to come together and pass it.
Related:
Colin Peterson, Climate Villain: Big Ag aims its pitchfork at historic climate legislation (Grist)
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Image: Light through storm clouds over White House, June 9, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
20 Climate Change Experts Urge Obama: Lead personally on global warming #ACES
Published June 22, 2009 @ 01:40PM PT
20 American climate experts have signed an open letter, urging President Obama to put the same personal stamp on curbing global warming, as he is on health care reform:
It is essential that the Waxman-Markey bill, strengthened wherever possible and certainly not weakened, advance into law rapidly. It is also essential that it become the basis for a serious, continuing, and urgent effort on the part of the President to lead the American public into recognition of the scale of the climatic disruption so that the U.S. will embrace still stronger policies to do what we know from scientific investigation is necessary to prevent disastrous climatic alteration.
As we write, we see the unfolding Presidential effort to lead the nation in the area of universal health insurance. We urge the President to initiate an effort at least comparable in the area of climatic change. We recognize the difference in popularity of these two causes, but it is the essence of Presidential leadership to show the way even where adequate public awareness of the risks ahead may be lacking.
After the jump, the entire letter:
Fatalistic Friday: Reality bites. Chu bites back.
Published June 19, 2009 @ 02:00PM PT
This week's installment of Fatalistic Friday is devoted wholly to one tour-de-force item: "The Secretary of Saving the Planet," Rolling Stone's profile of Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu.
Chu, a physicist, was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before joining the Obama administration. He is a clean energy visionary, as reporter Jeff Goodell makes clear right at the top of the piece:
Chu envisions a world powered almost entirely by the sun, with photovoltaic cells painted on the surface of buildings, deserts covered with solar panels, and superconducting transmission lines crisscrossing the country. Cars would be powered by smart batteries and genetically engineered biofuels. You might see a few next-generation nukes, as well as fields of wind turbines, but the one thing you won't see in Chu's perfect world is much oil, gas or coal. Chu is an unabashed crusader for the renewable future, a man whose most basic assumption about energy is that the age of fossil fuels is coming to a close.
This description alone should tell any astute observer what Chu is up against, and perhaps make some wonder if he's just going to spin his wheels in Washington, DC. But Chu's scientist enthusiasm for transformative projects, promising discoveries and new technologies, which is chased by a big dose of Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial thinking, is not bracketed by naiveté about our failure thus far to take sufficient, significant action to curb the causes of global warming.
At an MIT reception in May, Goodell writes, Chu is asked for his views on using geoengineering to mitigate the worst climate change, if current efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions don't pan out. This section is worth excerpting at length:
If Chu were a conventional politician, he would dismiss geoengineering as a sci-fi fantasy and move on. Not only is the whole idea anathema to environmentalists, it suggests that we are not going to cut pollution fast enough to stave off disaster. Thisis a particularly delicate topic right now, as Congress wrangles over climate legislation that sets specific targets for carbon emissions. Today, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is roughly 385 parts per million. Most climate scientists agree that the threshold for irreversible climate change is 450 parts per million. If we go much above that, we risk melting the polar ice sheets, turning the oceans into acid baths and causing extreme droughts.
Chu is certainly aware of all this. But instead of evading the question, he takes it a step further. "The fact is, we're not going to level out at 450 ppm," he says. "We're going to go over 450 ppm. So what will we do? I'm not in favor of deploying geoengineering. But thinking about it is OK." For a moment, the room goes quiet. In effect, the United States secretary of energy has just told an elite group of scientists and politicians that, no matter what happens with climate legislation this summer in Congress, no matter what China does or does not do, no matter what targets are set at climate negotiations in Copenhagen later this year, our future as a species is likely a grim one.
Chu has uttered the politically unthinkable: that his own administration’s efforts to halt global warming might not be enough to avert a catastrophe. John Holdren, President Obama’s chief science adviser, would never be so frank. (“I’m not going to talk about targets,” he tells me, before noting that he has said on previous occasions that he “hopes and expects” we can hold the line at 450 ppm.)
