Latest Articles

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Crappiness

Navajo nation at odds over coal-plant plan Members of the Navajo nation are at odds over a plan to build a $3 billion, 1,500-megawatt coal-fired power plant on reservation land in New Mexico. Tribal leaders say the plant — whose juice would go to Las Vegas and Phoenix — will generate $50 million in much-needed […]

At Last, Some Consensus

House votes today on universally despised farm bill Today finds the House scrambling to pass its controversial version of the 2007 farm bill. And by controversial, we mean everyone hates it — Democrats, Republicans, and the White House. The $286 billion package, which contains about $42 billion in subsidies, ends subsidies to farmers with an […]

More great news from the climate

Nature has published another landmark study showing how the complex interplay of human-generated pollution with natural systems worsens climate change. Their news article (subs. req'd) explains:

Rising levels of ozone pollution over the coming century will erode the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new climate-modelling study predicts.

Ozone is already known to be a minor greenhouse gas, but the new calculations highlight another, indirect way in which it is likely to influence global warming by 2100. High levels can poison plants and reduce their ability to photosynthesize, says Stephen Sitch of the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter.

Note this is actually a new amplifying feedback, since the hotter it gets the more ozone pollution is generated.

Below the fold is the rest of this article -- and for you hardcore science types, I'll end with the abstract of the original journal article.

A conversation with energy guru Amory Lovins

If politicians think in sound bites and intellectuals think in sentences, Amory Lovins thinks in white papers. His speech is studded with pregnant pauses — you can almost hear the whirs and clicks as an enormous mass of statistics, analyses, and aphorisms is trimmed and edited into a manageable length. I’ve talked to experts who […]

Lovins

Hey, did y’all notice that my interview with Amory Lovins is up? Go read it, if it so pleaseth you to do so.

Newsweek reports on green jobs

Newsweek on the growth of the green job market: Graduates of the class of 2007 are finding the job market is receptive to those who want to do good by the environment. As public awareness of global warming grows, companies are scrambling to put in place greener practices, to present themselves as more eco-friendly and […]

They just keep coming

There is constant drumbeat of accusations of hypocrisy against Al Gore for using offsets. Although the people who do this sort of thing are aiming for the lizard brain, I suppose it is worth pointing out that it is an obviously bogus accusation.

Look, I'm an offset critic. I think offsets are one of the biggest wrong turns we can make in fighting environmental destruction, especially global warming. Al Gore, on the other hand, is a strong advocate of offsets. He helped get them into the Kyoto treaty. If I were to buy offsets, I would be a hypocrite -- acting against my beliefs. When Al Gore buys offsets he is acting according to his beliefs. Regardless of whether those beliefs are right or wrong, no hypocrisy is involved.

Yeah, coal again

Still more from James Hansen's email:

Sighted in a Saudia Arabian zoo

I interrupt my reporting from Iowa to pass on this curio I found on the blog of my old friend Angelo Young, who works in Saudi Arabia and writes bemused, funny missives from the global crude-oil capital. In this one, he reports a strange sight in a Jeddah zoo: “This Lebanese guy handed the monkey […]

Making climate destabilization into art

Artist Chris Jordan portrays our culture's excessive waste and consumption.