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British PM attacks “anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics”

“With only days to go before Copenhagen we mustn’t be distracted by the behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics,” Brown told the Guardian. “We know the science. We know what we must do. We must now act….” So the British PM joins the leaders of Australia and this country in condemning the anti-science disinformers (see Obama […]

Pre-Copenhagen Climate Progress updates plus top ten players in green energy

First, the number of daily posts is going to jump 50% to 100% for the next two weeks.  I want to give full coverage to Copenhagen with lots of interviews, while still reporting on the other major issues, including hackergate and the bipartisan climate and clean energy bill.  I’ll be in Copenhagen myself the final […]

Obama’s double Copenhagen stunner

Again, anyone who thinks there’s not going to be a bipartisan climate bill in the spring or an international deal coming out of Copenhagen isn’t paying attention: Citing progress on many issues, the White House said Friday that President Obama had shifted the date he would appear at the United Nations climate change conference in […]

“Climate Science: Setting the Record Straight”

Memo to Climate Science community:  When illegal email hackers give you lemons, make some lemonade. In a Physics World article, “Publicize or perish,” I pointed out “The scientific community is failing miserably in communicating the potential catastrophe of climate change.“  Of course, that isn’t entirely the scientific community’s fault.  The media — especially senior editors […]

Live at Coal River Mountain rally with Bob Kincaid

As Google Earth takes world leaders at the Copenhagen Climate Summit on a virtual flyover of Coal River Mountain today, besieged residents and citizens groups from Coal River Mountain and across West Virginia and the Appalachian coalfields, along with their national allies, will hold a 2 pm EST rally at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston, W.Va., calling for an immediate halt to the reckless mountaintop removal blasting on Coal River Mountain.

The physics of Copenhagen: Why politics-as-usual may mean the end of civilization

Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Most political arguments don’t really have a right and a wrong, no matter how passionately they’re argued. They’re about human preferences — for more health care or lower taxes, for a war to secure some particular end or a peace that leaves some danger intact.  On occasion, there are clear-cut moral issues: […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]