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The end of deforestation in the Brazilian rainforest — for only $7 to $18 Billion?

In October, Brazil’s President announced, “I foresee that by 2020 we will be able to reduce deforestation by 80 percent; in other words, we will emit some 4.8 billion fewer tons of carbon dioxide gas.” Now, a new article in the December 4 issue of Science, “The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon,” (subs. […]

British PM attacks “anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics”

“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act….” So the British PM joins the leaders of Australia and this country in condemning the anti-science disinformers (see Obama […]

Pre-Copenhagen Climate Progress updates plus top ten players in green energy

First, the number of daily posts is going to jump 50% to 100% for the next two weeks.  I want to give full coverage to Copenhagen with lots of interviews, while still reporting on the other major issues, including hackergate and the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill.  I’ll be in Copenhagen myself the final […]

Obama’s double Copenhagen stunner

Again, anyone who thinks there’s not going to be a bipartisan climate bill in the spring or an international deal coming out of Copenhagen isn’t paying attention: Citing progress on many issues, the White House said Friday that President Obama had shifted the date he would appear at the United Nations climate change conference in […]

“Climate Science: Setting the Record Straight”

Memo to Climate Science community:  When illegal email hackers give you lemons, make some lemonade. In a Physics World article, “Publicize or perish,” I pointed out “The scientific community is failing miserably in communicating the potential catastrophe of climate change.“  Of course, that isn’t entirely the scientific community’s fault.  The media — especially senior editors […]

Climate Denial Crock of the Week/Climate Crock Smacks Hack Attack

Climate deniers have been making a lot of noise about a set of stolen emails from one of the world’s leading climate centers, The Universtiy of East Anglia. The spin they’re putting out is that the emails reveal what they always suspected, an evil global conspiracy.  They’re wishing really hard that these emails say something […]

Friday music blogging: fun.

Nate Ruess was in the briefly-almost-famous indie band The Format until they broke up in early 2008. At that point he reached out to multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost from the obscure but beloved-by-fans Anathallo to form a band called fun. fun.’s debut, Aim & Ignite, came out in October. If you’re gonna name your band fun. […]

It’s the economy, stupid!

With the employment news today about 100,000 jobs better than expected — “the nation’s employers had all but stopped shedding jobs in November” — I thought I’d run this graph Nate Silver posted a couple weeks ago in a post titled, “It’s [Still] The Economy, Dumbass.” Nate wrote “this is my favorite graph in quite […]

Bismarck Tribune editorial: Alternative energy jobs pay green

It’s no dig to say North Dakota has a long and profitable relationship with lignite coal. And it will likely continue. But make no mistake, the development of alternative energy sources, and the accompanying “green” jobs, will not be turned away. As the Tribune has said before, the state is best served by an energy […]

Senator Byrd stunner:

Change has been a constant throughout the history of our coal industry. West Virginians can choose to anticipate change and adapt to it, or resist and be overrun by it. One thing is clear. The time has arrived for the people of the Mountain State to think long and hard about which course they want […]