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Got the Urge for Knowing

Scientists and evangelical leaders form new climate alliance So a minister, a scientist, and a horse walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?” The horse just chuckles, but the other two begin a thoughtful discussion about how humans are destroying the planet. Sound far-fetched? Not after yesterday, when a group of […]

It’s Africa

Imagine a place where women must average seven children in their lifetime while risking infection from a fatal sexually transmitted disease (passed to the human population by eating other primates) that has left almost seven percent of those children orphaned.

This place experiences extreme climate shifts, cyclically throwing vast numbers of people into chronic starvation.

This place has been ravaged by constant civil war, wherein rival religious factions like the Lord's Resistance Army enslave and rape the populace while others cajole them to stop using contraception.

This place is home to some of the last of the 380 wild mountain Gorillas, two of which were just eaten.

This place has a ruler who is about to turn over to developers nine more tropical forests to grow biofuel stock (sugarcane and palm oil) instead of food.

Welcome to Children of Men in real time.

Pelosi snubs Dingell

I discussed the climate-change climate in the Senate — things are hopping. The House, of course, is a different and less friendly animal, where Dems are stepping more gingerly. One notable development is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi rather publicly stuck her thumb in the eye of Michigan Rep. John Dingell, announcing today the formation of […]

Senators put for broad array of climate legislation choices

This is a stellar piece of reporting from Felicity Barringer and Andy Revkin at the NYT. There’s a lot of background, context, and detail packed into a small space. What’s made clear by the piece, and by the graphic comparison of emissions scenarios, is that the nation has an astonishing array of climate legislation options […]

Grim

Before it gets too old: The San Francisco Chronicle ran an extraordinary piece over the weekend. It’s a long, detailed, science-based worst-case scenario of what California’s water situation could look like in coming decades. This stuff works so much better than dry facts. Tell a story. People like stories. Kudos to author Glen Martin.

Lines that are bright, how we love them

Bill McKibben’s Step It Up 2007 campaign (read his dispatches) is trying to rally a bunch of simultaneous protests pushing a single goal: reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% by 2050. This approach — picking a goal rather than supporting specific legislation — is known as bright lining, and it’s something you’re going to hear a […]

Happy happy!

The title of this post comes from a specific email request. Yes, I take requests! All right, here’s some non-suicide-inducing news: Mayor Bloomberg in NYC is handing over a big swath of (run down, condemned) city-owned land to a development firm that’s going to create a model green low-income community. (The firm won a design […]

How’s things up in Canada, eh?

From the fascinating world of Canadian politics: Stéphane Dion gave his first major policy speech as Liberal leader yesterday. How'd it go?

NOAA satellites are degrading

Reuters reported on Monday that without adequate funding for maintenance, we can expect NOAA-run observation satellites to be dropping like flies from orbit -- 58% of them by 2010, and pretty much the rest save five scrappy ones by 2020. And although the high-tech Ragnarok was foretold as far ago as last March, still no mission "go / no go" from the White House on what do about it.

Perhaps their rationale for decision-stalling is related to their lunar base idea -- just put a huge magnifying lens on the moon and we can see the changing earth better than ever! Just watch out for that sun glare though. We wouldn't want to burn something.

Gross

If The Mustache’s uncritical embrace of "clean coal" made you want to puke, I advise you avoid at all costs the letter to the editor sent in response by James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. You can’t resist? OK, here it is, in full: Thomas L. Friedman ("My Favorite Green […]