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It’s over

Well, damn. Kevin Drum stole my thunder.

I wanted to draw special attention to a post by John Quiggin, which announces:

More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics, along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians, have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.

He also makes this crucial point:

The science of cute

Ever wonder what makes some things (babies, puppies, the smiley-face emoticon) cute and other things (cockroaches, dinosaurs, Richard Pombo) not-so-cute? This New York Times article examines "The Cute Factor" -- science behind the characteristics such as roundness (think VW Beetle) and fuzziness that make an object worthy of the lovable, squeezable, I-want-to-eat-it-right-up-able adjective.

And cuteness is certainly not a concept lost on environmentalists. (See any plea from the World Wildlife Fund ever.) Listed in the article as ranking high on the cuteness scale are panda cubs, the stars of "March of the Penguins," and even the Prius. Now if only we could make carbon trading round and fuzzy.

Since U Been Overdrawn

California delta tapped for too much water, in ecological crisis The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California is in ecological freefall. The 738,000-acre area supplies drinking water to millions and irrigation water for major agricultural producers. The delta smelt, a fish that’s an indicator species for the region’s overall health, is fast sliding toward extinction, […]

James Woolsey on clean tech

Clean Edge has an interview with James Woolsey (who Grist has also interviewed), past director of the CIA and now co-chairman of the Committee on Present Danger, about how Osama really does love your SUV.

Bob Baer's book Sleeping With the Devil discusses how terrorists taking out the sulfur-cleaning towers in northeastern Saudi Arabia could take six million barrels per day off the market for up to a year, which would wreak economic devastation on our country. The United States borrows about $2 billion per day to finance our consumption. One billion of that is money for oil, and the Mid East is home for two-thirds of that oil. We are living on top of a volcano as long as we are that dependent on foreign oil.

Is not!

Jonathan Adler defends Samuel Alito against the attacks of environmental groups.

Who put the bunk in debunk-a-bunk-bunk?

The latest global warming debunkery, debunked, as always by the tireless Tim Lambert.

‘What are we supposed to do, walk?’

Thanks to Kit Stolz for pointing me to an Onion item I missed:

"Public Outraged As Price Of Fast-Depleting, Non-Renewable Resource Skyrockets"

Eco-friendly building materials: The new black

The New York Times discovers that the market for green building supplies (flooring, paint, etc.) is booming. As usual with puffy trend pieces like this, there is frustratingly little actual information, just a series of mini-profiles. One thing the piece does make clear is that this market is still the province of wealthy suburbanites. But, you know, the promise of economies of scale, blah blah ...

2006 predictions

Stuart Staniford over at Oil Drum offers some predictions for 2006 that are worth reading. I think he really lost his nerve here, though:

Civilization Collapse, Rapture, Alien invasion, etc.

I estimate the probability of any of these events in 2006 as being negligibly small.

Aw, c'mon!

More willing to predict The End, as always, is the indefatigable Jim Kunstler, who thinks 2006 ...

Which words defined 2005?

Check out Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year for 2005 -- the words most often looked up online. Can this be real?

1. integrity
   
2. refugee
   
3. contempt
   
4. filibuster
   
5. insipid
   
6. tsunami
   
7. pandemic
   
8. conclave
   
9. levee
   
10. inept

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.