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Toward a medically defensible energy policy

Pollution from coal is not only unhealthy for the environment — it also hurts the human body and contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, stroke and chronic respiratory disease. So concludes a new assessment of coal’s health effects from Physicians for Social Responsibility. Titled “Coal’s […]

Let’s look at one of the illegally hacked emails in more detail

The answer to the question “where the heck is global warming?” is “precisely where you would expect,” as we will see. Wired has done some excellent reporting on one of the supposed start-dumping-your-clean-energy-stocks e-mails — the one by Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in […]

Here’s what we know so far

NOTE:  This post will be continually updated to cover things like the NYT’s misdirected (front page!) reporting. As many of you will be aware, a large number of emails from the University of East Anglia webmail server were hacked recently (Despite some confusion generated by Anthony Watts, this has absolutely nothing to do with the […]

Friday music blogging: Harper Simon

I have a huge, huge soft spot for Paul Simon. Simon & Garfunkel was one of the first bands I ever got into (like when I was eight) and I still love virtually everything Simon’s ever done. My musical tastes were shaped by his catchy melodies, pretty harmonies, and wry, literate lyrics. I’m one of […]

Carol Browner strongly backs bipartisan cap-and-trade bill

A top White House adviser yesterday pushed back against the idea of paring down Senate legislation on energy and global warming and frowned upon emerging talk among some moderates to limit legislative efforts to capping greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. “Our position is, let’s do it all,” said Carol Browner, President Obama’s senior aide […]

Uber-ironic 1962 ad touts oil’s ability to melt glaciers!

David Roberts at Grist has the winner of the irony-can-be-so-ironic award: From a sharp-eyed reader comes this ad for Humble Oil (which later merged with Standard to become, yes, Exxon). It may win the All Time Millenial Award for Maximal Irony. It’s from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine, available on Google Books (click for […]

Obama takes on the anti-scientific delayers

What is the best way to talk about those who are devoting their efforts to spread disinformation on climate science and/or climate legislation?  Recent speeches by President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Rudd, who represent the two biggest industrialized countries that have so far refused to take action, offer some suggestions. Certainly, if you want […]

Contest: Respond to this uber-lame NY Times op-ed

I could easily spend all my time just responding to every single piece of silliness that appears in the mainstream media on global warming.  But not only would that be unproductive and unhelpful for my readers (i.e. you), but heck I have great readers capable of doing such responses themselves. The NY Times has just […]

Tom Friedman on “What They Really Believe”

If you follow the debate around the energy/climate bills working through Congress you will notice that the drill-baby-drill opponents of this legislation are now making two claims. One is that the globe has been cooling lately, not warming, and the other is that America simply can’t afford any kind of cap-and-trade/carbon tax. But here is […]

Reid plans debate on bipartisan bill “sometime in the spring”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today confirmed that floor debate on a sweeping energy and global warming bill that will be sold to the American public in part as an economic stimulus measure will be held early next year. “We’re going to try to do that sometime in the spring,” Reid told reporters when […]