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The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach doesn’t understand basic climate science

Repeat after me, Joel: "Global warming makes the weather more extreme." If even the Bush administration accepts that basic fact of climate science, shouldn't you?

I used to like Achenbach's cutesy science pieces, but his knowledge of climate science is about one or two decades old, as evidenced by his major story in The Washington Post, "Global Warming Did It! Well, Maybe Not." It is a typically uninformed journalistic "backlash" piece whereby a reporter creates a straw man and then sets it on fire.

Achenbach is trying to seem reasonable by complaining that the next time we get a big hurricane, "some expert will tell us that this storm might be a harbinger of global warming." Uhh, I hate to break this to you Joel, but global warming doesn't need a "harbinger." It has been here for decades.

In that sense, your article is not a harbinger of global warming denial, since deniers have been pushing back against the "global warming causes extreme weather" story for years, browbeating the media into downplaying the connection. You really should read your fellow journalist Ross Gelbspan's long discussion of this in his great 2004 book, Boiling Point. Achenbach writes:

‘Major discovery’ from MIT unpractical, and ignores present advances in solar baseload

I have gotten bombarded by too many people asking me if the story headlined above is true. It isn't. Not even close.

Science magazine, which published the supposedly "major discovery" by MIT's Daniel Nocera, headlined their story, "New Catalyst Marks Major Step in the March Toward Hydrogen Fuel" ($ub. req'd). Doh! But who needs a major step towards hydrogen?

And Science seems to be having problems with the laws of physics, as we'll see. I thought I had explained this to Scientific American, but given their puff piece -- the findings "help pave the way for a future hydrogen economy" -- I obviously failed. Let me try again.

MIT had the sexier headline on unleashing the solar revolution. Too bad that headline isn't accurate for two mains reasons: The solar revolution already has been unleashed, and if it hadn't been, this technology wouldn't do the trick even if were near commercial, which it isn't. MIT reports:

Top heavy?

John Stauber on MoveOn et al: MoveOn has fallen into the same top-down rut that all the big national public interest and environmental groups are in. MoveOn raises millions and millions of dollars each year, but the dollars go into marketing, advertising, and candidates, and not into empowering the 3.2 million people on their list. […]

Gen Y chooses style over sustainability

What companies do today’s trendsetters consider to be the top 15 green brands? It’s not who you might think … A survey of 100 Gen Y’ers (born 1979-1993) asked which brands they perceived to be most eco-friendly. Here are the top 15: Whole Foods Trader Joe’s Toyota Honda Google Aveda Zipcar American Apparel Ikea 7th […]

Snippets from the news

• San Francisco mayor signs nation’s toughest green-building law, proposes fines for unsorted trash. • British energy companies told to reallocate funding from cutting emissions to helping the fuel poor. • Green groups drop opposition to Texas coal plant. • Most of new U.S. drilling wells are for natural gas. • Almost half the world’s […]

The breakdown of Big Oil’s record-breaking profits

Record Big Oil profits from record oil prices and taxpayer subsidies -- where does all your money go?

With ExxonMobil's report of a $11.68 billion haul in the second quarter of 2008, the world's top five oil companies are now on track for more than $160 billion in profits this year ...

I know what you are thinking: Surely, Big Oil will take those staggeringly immense and almost immoral profits from the suspiciously fast rise in oil prices -- along with the $33 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies you're going to give those politically powerful and remarkably greedy companies over the next five years (see here) -- and invest in both new drilling and new energy technology. No it won't, no it won't, and stop calling me Shirley.

In fact, the AP reports:

NYT Magazine swoons for Pickens

From the most recent New York Times Magazine:

As a Texas oilman and major contributor to the Republican Party, you've just launched yourself, at 80, into green stardom by devising an energy plan that relies mainly on wind power.

Green stardom. All you have to do is mention wind turbines to make the eyes of dirty hippies glaze over in delight.

How much does it take to buy a protest on the floor of the House?

Here’s another interesting chart (via Josh Nelson via Open Secrets) showing the amount of oil and gas contributions to the House Republicans now engaging in pep rally theatrics on the floor of the House: Republican House Member 2006 2008 Rep. Lynn Westmoreland $0 $0 Rep. John Boehner $65,000 $0 Rep. Adam Putnam $0 $20,000 Rep. […]

Whole Foods tries to shake its elitist reputation

Whole Foods Market, with its gleaming displays of organic produce, antibiotic-free meat, and vegan baked goods, has long branded itself as a high-quality grocery retailer — thus earning the nickname Whole Paycheck and a reputation for elitism. But with the economy sagging — bringing with it, according to some analysts, consumer interest in organic food […]

Three models for environmental analysis and planning

There are several fundamental areas of disagreement that underlay the ostensible topics of debate here on Grist. I have pulled together three planning and training devices used by organizers and campaigners in the PIRG tradition, as well as Green Corps, that are helpful in surfacing and naming such disagreements -- a common language for dispute, if you will.

Continuum of environmental action

A strength of environmentalism had been the flowering of its forms and politics. Our power has declined in direct proportion as our diversity has narrowed to an orthodox cannon of acceptable forms of environmental advocacy. At the height of our power, US environmentalism boasted vibrant organizational forms across a spectrum of strategy, tone, ideals and, probably most important, insider/outsider roles, particularly protest.

It is inappropriate to stuff that diversity into the straightjacket of one scale, but I've done so anyway because it underlines the overall point. (I don't want to be flooded with complaints the this or that box is too small or the wrong color. If anyone feels strongly about it, to paraphrase Tom Leher, I am prepared not only to withdraw the chart but to swear under oath that I never created it to begin with.) In 1982 U.S. environmentalists had powerful organizations across the breadth of approach. Today, we are highly concentrated in a handful of specialized areas. But rather than acknowledging that we are weakened by this trend, we seem to be driving even further in the direction of splintering what is already an extremely fragile institution.

The value of drawing the continuum is that it encourages us to look at our efforts on an institutional scale, rather than a myopic organizational view.