Of all the subjects that haunt the climate conversation, none is so vexed as growth.

The details are complex, but the dilemma is simple: Growth seems to improve humanity's quality of life and drive ecological overshoot at the same time.

On one hand, economic growth leads to poverty reduction, better health, technological innovation, and (local) environmental improvement. On the other hand, it has pushed us into the red zone on climate and a number of other global ecological indicators. Humanity's lot steadily improves while biophysical systems are pushed closer to the edge. It's a sticky wicket. Pro-growth and anti-growth types often seem involved in entirely separate conversations, passing like ships in the night. How can we reconcile their perspectives?

Last week, researcher Kate Raworth of Oxfam International proposed a new framework for understanding how human development and ecological boundaries fit together. Happily, it's a doughnut. Here's what it looks like:

Okay, but dogs CAN look up. (Photo by Casey Morris.)

Todd Tanner will give you his gun when you pry it from his cold, convinced-of-the-nonexistence-of-climate-change hands. Tanner, the chair of the new group Conservation Hawks -- sportsmen (i.e. hunters) who don't want climate change to ruin their fun -- has challenged anyone to prove to him that climate change shouldn’t be a concern. If you win, he will give you, the Conservationist's Hal Herring reports, "his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt." (Grist List doesn’t know that much about guns but this one looks pretty much like the gun we’d want to own, if we owned a gun.)

Lest deniers think the man is joking, Herring assures us, "I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun."

This is gonna hurt: Hurricane Irene makes landfall, Aug. 27, 2011. (Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.)

Cross-posted from the Bay Journal News Service.

In Northumberland County, Va., the Board of Supervisors has tentatively approved a massive home/resort/marina complex on Bluff Point, a marshy, wooded peninsula jutting into the Chesapeake Bay from Virginia’s lovely Northern Neck. The rural county -- four stoplights, 13,000 residents -- acknowledges in its master development plan that sea levels are rising, and places Bluff Point in a “conservation” zone; but after consulting experts paid for partly by the developer, the supervisors granted an “exception.”

It’s the latest example, on the shores of North America’s largest estuary, of science getting drowned out when developers wave big money at county officials craving revenue. And it’s an important story, as the Chesapeake is something of a ground zero for climate change: At the same time sea levels are rising, the land around the bay is sinking as a result of local geology. Larger-than-ever storm surges are a certainty.

It's time to let the voters play DJ. (Photo by Jeremy Ryan)

20:  number of Republican presidential primary debates held over the past year

839:  number of unique questions asked at those debates

109:  number of questions about "how conservative" candidates are

3:  number of questions about the Keystone XL pipeline

2:  number of questions about climate change

1:  number of questions about pizza crust

Those are some of the findings of journalism students at NYU's Studio 20, led by professor Jay Rosen. They analyzed all of the questions journalists asked at the debates and broke them down into topic areas. Only 1 percent got categorized as fluff (e.g., when Herman Cain was asked, "Deep dish or thin crust?"), but many of the questions focused on the horse-race aspects of the primary -- polls, negative ads, flip-flops, campaign strategy, "electability" -- and not on the kinds of substantive issues that most Americans are actually concerned about.

The environment got particularly short shrift: More questions were asked about the moon than about the earth.

Photo by Andrew Nicholson.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green.

The founder of Conservation Hawks, an organization of sportsmen dedicated to fighting climate change, will give up his gun if global warming is a hoax.

“If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: a Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt,” Hal Herring writes at The Conservationist. “I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun.” Tanner told The Conservationist:

Photo by Niklas Morberg.

Here's a reason for Republicans to finally care about climate change: It threatens straight monogamous bird marriage. According to a new study, unpredictable climates cause birds to Gingrich it up, making them more likely to play the field rather than sticking with one partner.

With the Keystone XL pipeline back in the news this week, there's been some interesting discussion on the interwebs about the tensions between climate analysts and climate advocates. Time's Bryan Walsh has a nice run-down and cites an interesting recent post from George Hoberg called "The Three Logics of Climate Politics." Here's Hoberg:

The logics of analysis and advocacy are fundamentally different. The analyst is guided by aspirations for truth and well-reasoned argument, and guided largely by the value of maximizing the cost-effectiveness of solutions. They chaff against exaggerations and misuse of data by advocates on all sides, and search for the best reasoned argument for the most efficient path forward.

In contrast, the climate advocate is trying to maximize political leverage in an effort to foster systemic transformation of the energy system. The logic of political action and movement building is different from the logic of policy efficiency. The advocate works to strategically frame problems and solutions that work politically, not those that best adhere to the standards of analytical rigor. Frequently, this involves exaggerated claims that aggravate the analyst.

I would frame it slightly differently, as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. On one end you have the beat reporter: all facts, no opinion. Then there's the analyst, who shapes facts into coherent stories about the way things are and arguments about policy choices. Then there's the advocate, who endorses particular political outcomes. And on the far end, the activist, who sets about to create those political outcomes.

Photo by Michael Edson.

Electric cars are finally picking up speed on American roads after being stalled out for a decade or two. The new cars are zippy, they corner like they’re on rails, and they’re a hell of a lot cheaper to drive than the gas burning kind.

But that last part might change: Several states, including Washington and Arizona, are now considering taxing electric vehicles. And while many electric car drivers seem game, others are concerned that a tax could bomb a nascent industry on the runway, just as it is finally about to take off.

Rick Santorum, even nuttier than you think. (Photo by Dave Maass.)

Rick Santorum is way crazy when it comes to environmental issues. How crazy? He makes Newt Gingrich's moon-colony plans sound plausible and Mitt Romney's climate flip-floppery look presidential.

On climate change

While Mitt and Newt have both felt compelled to repudiate their former concern for climate change, Santorum can boast that he's a denier of long standing.

“There is no such thing as global warming,” he told Glenn Beck on Fox News in June 2011.

“It’s just an excuse for more government control of your life and I’ve never been for any scheme or even accepted the junk science behind the whole narrative,” he told Rush Limbaugh that some month.

He went further at an event in Colorado on Feb. 6: