Latest Articles
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The ‘small problem’ with GMOs and Africa
Drought in Ethiopia.The Des Moines Register‘s Philip Brasher is in Africa reporting on the potential for GMO crops to help alleviate hunger in the developing world. The current focus is on drought-tolerant crops for obvious reasons: I grew up in western Texas and covered the Midwest’s devastating drought of 1988. I know what a drought […]
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What does it mean that Obama is going to Copenhagen at the end of the climate talks? [UPDATED]
We asked our expert panel about the significance of President Obama changing the timing of his visit to the Copenhagen climate talks, from Dec. 9, the middle of the first week, to Dec. 18, the big finale at the end of the second week. Is this a big deal? What does it mean? Here are […]
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At Copenhagen Climate Conference, an undercurrent of theft and deceit
Among the hundreds of riders on this city’s automated, energy-efficient Metro rapid transit system was Isakwisa Mwamukonda, an environmental policy manager for the vice president of Tanzania. We had half a dozen stops between the tight-cornered streets of Copenhagen’s downtown and the Bella Center, site of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, to explore the promise […]
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As Copenhagen kicks off, a Good News roundup
The fashionable narrative about climate politics in American media is deflationist: nobody cares about climate any more because of some emails, the Senate clean energy bill is doomed because of the economy, and the Copenhagen climate talks will end in failure because of intractable differences between developed and developing nations. It gets old. Just for […]
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‘Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation’
Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency. Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for […]
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Ask Umbra on globetrotting friends, thorium reactors, and more
Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I have greatly cut back on my airplane trips because of my concern about global warming. However, I have groups of friends whose main conversation is about the overseas trips they have been on. When I don’t have an exotic place to talk about it seems like […]
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The world needs a dramatic climax in Copenhagen, not a lame dress rehearsal
“Calm before the storm” is how my colleague Jamie Henn described Copenhagen today. “‘Hopenhagen‘ advertising everywhere, people setting up a outdoor concert venue in downtown, a few anarchist posters wheat-pasted on signs, and I even saw a 350.dk license plate on a bicycle!” I’m still in the United States, but packing for the trip to […]
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In a frenzied Copenhagen, crucial climate talks begin
COPENHAGEN–There was no calm before the storm. At least not over the last few days, not in Copenhagen. The climate change conference begins for real this Monday morning, but the deluge—of information, of people, of noise of all sorts—swept into the city days ago. Downtown, the wide sidewalks are jammed. Visitors ascend to street level […]
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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 […]
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Will Copenhagen save the rainforests?
In the midst of decreasing expectations over a global climate deal, saving forests has been held out as the one thing that might be achieved over the next two weeks in Copenhagen. Says Newsweek: “One of the few tangible achievements expected from the climate talks in Copenhagen this month is agreement on a program called […]
