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Bizarre talking points of WaPo columnist Krauthammer

Sir Isaac Newton is one of the towering geniuses in all human history. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer? Not so much.

Krauthammer has written a classic anti-science screed, "Carbon Chastity: The First Commandment of the Church of the Environment," that recasts many favorite anti-scientific denier memes in odd terms. You still hear and see all of these today, so let me touch on a few of them. And as I will discuss in Part 2, the article is most useful because it is a very clear statement of the real reason conservatives don't believe in climate science: They hate the solution.

As a physicist, my favorite denier talking point is his strange version of the old claim that "scientists are flip floppers, constantly changing their theories." He writes:

Nice way of life. Shame if something happened to it.

According to ACCCE, if we don’t use coal, we’ll have to wave goodbye to the American way of life:

Industry & green groups join up to back climate bill

A coalition of corporations, green groups, and unions issued a joint statement to senators yesterday declaring their support for the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which will hit the Senate floor on Monday. Among the endorsers is General Electric, one of the five largest companies in the world — definitely a big pick-up for the legislation. […]

More hybrid electric bikes hit the streets

I have received hundreds of emails from people wanting to build a hybrid electric bike. I have a standard response that attempts to dissuade them, which seems to work pretty well: You will have to spend about $1,400 on parts, excluding the bicycle. When it breaks -- and it will break -- you will be on your own to fix it. If you are not a reasonably fit cyclist and expect this bike to perform like a scooter, you are going to be disappointed.

This generally takes care of the technically challenged chain smokers looking for a cheap scooter. I don't hear back from most, other than maybe a thank you note. If you have to ask for help, you probably shouldn't be building one.

To create a truly sustainable food system, we’ll have to confront the farm-labor crisis

When I think about what a truly healthy, vibrant food system would look like, I envision more farms: small farms serving specific communities, and diversified, midsized farms geared to supplying their surrounding regions. Many hands make site work. Of course, there would still be interstate and global trade — you can’t grow olives or coffee […]

Friday music blogging: My Morning Jacket

The first few albums from My Morning Jacket were haunting, twangy gems that sprang from their Kentucky roots. The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn were so reverby and echo-laden they sounded like they were recorded in an abandoned grain silo … because they were. I had the band tucked away in my mental CD shelf […]

Science: Geo-engineering scheme damages the ozone layer

Science has published a major new study, "The Sensitivity of Polar Ozone Depletion to Proposed Geoengineering Schemes" ($ub. req'd). The study finds:

The large burden of sulfate aerosols injected into the stratosphere by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 cooled Earth and enhanced the destruction of polar ozone in the subsequent few years. The continuous injection of sulfur into the stratosphere has been suggested as a "geoengineering" scheme to counteract global warming. We use an empirical relationship between ozone depletion and chlorine activation to estimate how this approach might influence polar ozone. An injection of sulfur large enough to compensate for surface warming caused by the doubling of atmospheric CO2 would strongly increase the extent of Arctic ozone depletion during the present century for cold winters and would cause a considerable delay, between 30 and 70 years, in the expected recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

Of course, this geo-engineering scheme has lots of other problems. An earlier study noted:

Amnesty International: forced labor in Brazil’s sugarcane fields

As the case for corn-based ethanol unravels, a lot of pundits and green-minded investors have settled on a new panacea: ethanol from sugar cane, which thrives in the tropics. Thomas Friedman has been blustering about it for years now; Richard Branson recently hinted he might start investing in it. Sugarcane is a deeply ironic crop […]

Obama & Clinton shill for coal in Montana

The Flathead Beacon in Montana pinned down interviews with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ahead of the state’s Tuesday primary. The paper asked questions on domestic oil and gas drilling, the preservation of public lands, and coal. The whole thing is interesting, but the candidates’ responses on coal were the most notable: Q: But […]

Obama says climate and energy would be top priorities at start of his admin

It’s a bit buried here, but Marc Ambinder notes that at a fundraiser in Denver on Wednesday night, Barack Obama said his first-100-day priorities would include sending a “signal to the world” on energy and climate change. Wish that were a bit more specific, but hey, at least it’s in there.