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Massive moisture-driven extreme precipitation during warmest winter in the satellite record —

Memo to anti-science crowd:  Precipitation isn’t temperature! Another massive mid-Atlantic precipitation event, another piece of nonsense from the anti-science crowd.   Kevin Mooney of the American Spectator actually wrote an article titled, “Snowmageddon” Versus “Overwhelming Scientific Evidence,” which asserts:   This is the first time since record keeping started that two storms of such magnitude have […]

N.Y. Times and Elisabeth Rosenthal Face Credibility Siege over Unbalanced Climate Coverage

UPDATE:  Climate scientist Ken Caldeira has just sent me an email titled, “I can’t believe the New York Times has done it again …” that I’ll reprint in its entirety at the end. You can contact the NY Times public editor, Clark Hoyt, at [email protected]. The NYT has published arguably its worst climate story ever, […]

Progress from the Copenhagen Accord: A good start to global progress on climate safety

This past December, 192 countries gathered for the 15th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ambitions for the Copenhagen meeting were high. UNFCCC members had agreed at their 13th meeting in Bali, Indonesia in 2007 that December 2009 would be the deadline to determine a course of action […]

Obama plan would educate clean energy scientists and engineers

Last week, the Obama administration introduced a proposal that every college student and educator in the country should know about. It represents the nation’s first comprehensive federal program for clean energy education, and it’s a critical step toward regaining American leadership in one of the most important industries of our time. Over the past two […]

Smart Growth even makes snowstorms better

Mixed land use is a tenet of Smart Growth development that has a lot of virtues. But the name is boring and not very descriptive. Here’s Matt Yglesias describing what it’s like to live in a mixed-use D.C. neighborhood: The building where I live turns out to be a really good place to pass a […]

Did Michelle Obama get the president to create a national Food Policy Council?

Michelle Obama kicked off her campaign against childhood obesity today. Among the provisions are a revamping of the school lunch program, a small boost in funding for farmers markets, a major initiative to “end” food deserts by 2017, a focus on maintaining children’s exercise levels, a set of broad public-private partnerships, along with reforms to […]

Policy fixes to unleash clean energy

Suppose you became King tomorrow and your first order of  business was to modernize the U.S. energy system — make it cleaner, cheaper, more reliable and more sustainable. What would you do? Now suppose you’re the King’s subjects, and he has just announced his plan per the above. What will you learn? Clearly, you’ll learn […]

Companies that invest in states like Massachusetts and California are going to prosper

Is Arnold a carbon girlie man?United NationsAs mudslides on the west coast and an epic blizzard on the east coast competed for news coverage last week, nothing could dim the glow of an economic report that contained a remarkable conclusion: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is trying to make California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a […]

Car free in Boston, for all the wrong reasons

I’m currently in transportation transition. By the end of the month, I will have transferred my aging VW into my partner’s name, and canceled my own insurance. I will have tuned up my bike, spent a good chunk of money on a metro pass, and signed up with the local car-sharing business. But I’m not […]

The hidden costs and benefits of things we take for granted

Raj Patel has an interesting list of “things that aren’t as cheap as you think,” with an always-welcome reminder that many industries and social practices have costs that don’t appear in the sticker price. These “externalities” are offloaded to the public; they represent, in effect, enormous subsidies. Free marketeers hate market-distorting subsidies, right? For the […]