Oh brother. CEI is at it again with a "special web-only bonus" titled Al Gore: An Inconvenient Story. Electric_Penguin over at Hugg.com sums it up nicely: CEI has created quite the moral dilemma for themselves. They are condemning Al Gore for generating dramatically more Carbon Dioxide emissions than an average person while traveling around the world giving speeches on global warming. You can't condemn Al Gore for traveling and contributing to Global Warming when you are denying Global Warming exists. Either "CO2 is life" or Global Warming exists and the balancing act between to little and too much begins.

Someone -- I think Bart? -- sent me to a paper by David Fleming called "Why nuclear power cannot be a major energy source." I just got done reading it, and as far as I'm concerned it is devastating to the pro-nuclear argument. Game over. The paper -- based primarily on the work of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith -- carefully considers how much uranium is left in the ground, the energy balance for the full nuclear lifecycle (including cleaning up waste), the promise of breeder reactors, and just about every other aspect of nuclear power. The …

Some small animals evolving to adapt to climate change, study finds As we humans cling to the status quo while it floats down the river toward a global-warming waterfall (ahem), smaller animals are getting on with evolving. New research in Science identifies heritable genetic changes in some small wildlife that increase their chances of survival in the lengthened spring and autumn seasons brought about by climate change. Some animals are migrating, reproducing, or developing earlier in the spring, including fruit flies, mosquitoes, Canadian red squirrels, European blackcap birds, and, uh, European great tits (they're birds). Small animals that reproduce speedily …

As GOP leaders bluster about gay marriage, flag burning, and the "death tax," Democrats are struggling to get a word in edgewise about the bevy of proposals they've been drafting to address more substantive national concerns -- namely, soaring gas prices, dependence on oil from an increasingly volatile Middle East, and global warming. These are among the hot-button election-year issues that Republicans are trying to dodge by throwing red meat to their right-wing base. Dems say they've got solutions for America's energy problems. Photo: iStockphoto. Dems are pulling out all the stops -- including Robert Redford -- to get some …

Climate change could make pollen rise and allergies worse Perhaps you've heard the argument that a rise in carbon dioxide levels is a good thing, because CO2 helps plants grow. Well, says Hah-vard's Paul Epstein, "It is the opportunistic plants like poison ivy and ragweed that thrive." That's right, ye allergy-stricken: More CO2 means more pollen, according to a new study. Harvard researchers found that ragweed grown under conditions mimicking a warming globe produced about 55 percent more pollen than ragweed grown under current conditions. Climate change is already causing spring to arrive earlier in many places, but researchers wrote, …

If you had to name the foreign-policy heavyweight who has brought more political muscle to the energy-independence crusade than any other, it would be Dick Lugar. Republican from Indiana and chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lugar is no stranger to superlatives: Named one of the "10 Best Senators" in a recent issue of Time Magazine, he is also widely considered one of the most influential moderate Republicans in Washington. Hailing from an agrarian state, Lugar naturally considers homegrown biofuels the best weapon in the battle against dependency on foreign oil. In March, he partnered with Sen. Barack Obama …

Insurers must address climate change or face trouble, big U.K. firm warns Lloyd's of London, the world's oldest insurance market, yesterday warned U.K. insurers that they are in danger of being "swept away" by future global warming-related financial claims. In a report punchily titled "Climate Change, Adapt or Bust," Lloyd's encouraged insurers to adjust coverage-calculating strategies to factor in future climate-change scenarios instead of basing them on historical data. Some risks, like flooding in vulnerable coastal areas, are likely enough that the report suggests providers restrict or entirely withdraw coverage in those areas. Swept away, indeed. "If we don't take …

Roger Pielke Jr. has an overheated post up today wondering why I don't care about the suffering of "millions, perhaps billions" of people around the world adversely affected by climate. Oy. I hesitate to reply, but here goes. People, mainly poor people -- in the U.S., but far more so in developing countries -- are increasingly vulnerable to severe weather: floods, droughts, hurricanes, etc. The reasons have mainly to do with growing population, bad land-use decisions, economic dislocation, oligarchic greed, and other socioeconomic forces. Global warming plays some role at the margins, increasing the severity of the weather, but for …

Global warming isn't the only thing threatening wine. In France, groundwater less than 10 km from the famous Champagne vineyards has tested positive for radioactive contamination, caused by a nearby leaking nuclear waste dump: "We have been told for decades that nuclear dumpsites will not leak and that the best standards are being applied. In reality the dumpsite in Normandy is a disaster, and radioactivity is already leaking from the dumpsite in Champagne," said Shaun Burnie nuclear campaigner at Greenpeace International. "The authorities know they have a problem in Champagne already, with mistakes in the design. This is only the …

World's deserts will become more desert-y, says U.N. Happy World Environment Day -- we got you some bad news! As climate change progresses, desert temperatures will rise up to 12.6 degrees F by the end of the century; rainfall in most deserts will decline by up to 20 percent; water will become scant, or too salty to drink or use for crops. So warns a chipper new United Nations report, anyway. These changes could endanger the globe's 500 million desert-dwellers and a variety of rare animals, including our new favorite, the Asian houbara bustard. Desert regions account for nearly a …