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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Stemming global deforestation emissions: Copenhagen (part 4)

There was an extensive debate in the lead-in to the Kyoto Protocol (and after) about whether incentives for reducing deforestation would be recognized as a part of the agreement. For a number of reasons countries didn’t agree to include deforestation incentives, but did agree to allow increased forest cover to count. Unfortunately a lot of […]

Top Obama admin. officials tout clean energy in Seattle

SEATTLE — You could tell by the way Obama administration officials pep-talked a roomful of clean-energy businesspeople today that the White House realizes it hasn’t convinced Americans that “tackling climate change = ending the recession.” Again and again EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Undersecretary Kristina Johnson pounded on the jobs issue at a pre-Copenhagen […]

From Bhopal to Copenhagen

I tried, unsuccessfully, to learn if anyone from Bhopal, India, would be speaking at the climate summit in Copenhagen. It seems unlikely, but the delegates gathering in Copenhagen need to hear what only someone from Bhopal can properly tell them. They need to know what it was like 25 years ago this week, when a […]

Friday music blogging: fun.

Nate Ruess was in the briefly-almost-famous indie band The Format until they broke up in early 2008. At that point he reached out to multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost from the obscure but beloved-by-fans Anathallo to form a band called fun. fun.’s debut, Aim & Ignite, came out in October. If you’re gonna name your band fun. […]