I think they're getting it. (Photo by B Rosen.)

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

To go by the polls, the high point of public understanding of climate science was 2006 to 2008. That’s no surprise, since that period saw a peak in media reporting on climate science, starting in 2006 with An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation on climate science, and continuing in 2007 with the four scientific assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Disputes on the science were kept to a minimum in the 2008 election since both major candidates -- Barack Obama and John McCain -- understood and articulated both climate science and the need for action. It wasn’t until after Obama was elected with progressive majorities in both houses of Congress and the prospects for climate action became real that the anti-science disinformation campaign kicked into overdrive.

Photo by Martin Luff.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team has found that a sharp jump in earthquakes in America’s heartland appears to be linked to oil and natural gas drilling operations.

As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking -- that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Once upon a time, Obama said future generations would remember his ascendance as "the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."

In a Cushing, Okla., speech Thursday, Obama made clear future generations would remember him for something quite different:

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

The revolution will be televised. So will the post-apocalyptic fight to feed ourselves on a ruined planet.

Those are two key themes of the wildly popular young adult (YA) trilogy that begins with The Hunger Games, whose movie version comes out this week. The trailer gives the key plot points:

After what seems to be a climate-driven apocalypse, Panem, “the country that rose up out of the ashes of the place that was once called North America,” is divided into a capitol and 12 districts, who launched a failed revolution many decades earlier.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Did you see the big smackdown Thursday night between MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)? The dean of disinformation mostly just repeated his well-worn falseshoods about global warming, which Maddow shot down.

But there was one remarkable admission from the former chair of the Senate Environment Committee:

I was actually on your side of this issue when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.

In short, learning about the (supposed) high cost of the solution is what turned him from a believer in climate science to a denier.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Back in November, GE’s TXCHNOLOGIST blog pointed out that climate change “could ruin Texas football,” indeed all southern U.S. football:

The effects of climate change, so far, have been most noticeable in Texas, where a terrible drought has dried up football fields in small towns that used to look forward to Friday nights above all. But climate change will have a terrible effect on communities throughout the cradle of football in the Southern and plains states.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

Bill Gates is one very confused billionaire philanthropist.

He understands global warming is a big problem — indeed, his 2012 Foundation Letter even frets about the  grave threat it poses to food security. But he just doesn’t want to do very much now to stop it from happening.

Photo by Walter Disney.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

President of American Gas Association (AGA), 1981:

In fact, gas energy -- currently America’s largest domestically produced fuel -- could prove to be the keystone to solving the nation’s energy crisis by serving as the ‘bridge fuel’ to the next century’s renewable energy technologies.

Vice president of AGA, 1988, according to the Washington Post:

... refers to natural gas as a bridge fuel -- the least harmful alternative while the world looks for other, longer-lasting solutions to the ‘greenhouse’ effect.

Chair of AGA, 2008 [PDF]:

Natural gas will be the bridge fuel to the future ... The electric industry is expected to turn to natural gas as a bridge until clean coal and nuclear generation are available.

It’s the longest bridge in history! Heck, the Golden Gate Bridge only took four years to build!

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Cross-posted from Climate Progress.

In the 1990s, the Gingrich Congress tried to shut down the Department of Energy (DOE), slash all clean energy research, stop the joint government-industry effort to develop a super-efficient hybrid car, and zero out all programs aimed specifically at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating technology deployment.

He didn't succeed -- but he did stop the significant expansion of clean energy funding Clinton-Gore had begun. And he did force the DOE to sharply scale back its programs aimed at clean energy deployment and greenhouse gas reduction.

Photo: Gage SkidmoreCross-posted from Climate Progress. The largest newspaper in the state Mitt Romney once governed has endorsed former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman in the lead-up to the New Hampshire primary. Here are the key excerpts from the Boston Globe editorial, "For vision and national unity, Huntsman for GOP nominee": He has stood up far more forcefully than Romney against those in his party who reject evolution and the science behind global warming ... Strong economic growth put Utah in the top five in job creation during Huntsman's tenure, while he gave tax credits to companies developing solar energy. He …