Latest Articles

On the NASA administrator’s comments

Michael Griffin is a highly educated guy. He has five Masters degrees (count 'em: aerospace science, electrical engineering, applied physics, business administration, and civil engineering) and a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering (see here).

However, his interview on NPR shows that all that book learnin' doesn't mean what he says is intelligent.

For a recap of the high points of the interview, see David's post. I'm going to talk in this post about what makes our climate optimal.

Who knew the stoic people of Minnesota were so advanced?

Wow, we hear about California this and California that, occasionally some Vermont or Oregon thrown in, once in awhile someone will know that Texas is a wind capitol.

But I can't remember anyone ever mentioning that, when it comes to a serious program to address global heating, Minnesota rocks!

Just for comparison, note how weak and pallid Oregon's renewable energy standard (which only applies to electricity, not energy) is compared to Minnesota's comprehensive greenhouse gas law.

From the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Al Gore and politics

Al Gore: When the inevitable question came — his intentions about 2008 — he said politics “rewards a tolerance for artifice, repetition, triviality that I don’t have in as great supply as I might have had when I was younger.” … “I think there are a lot of things about politics as it has evolved […]

Pesticide efficacy is decreasing

If you've ever colored Easter eggs -- I mean the old-fashioned way, with food-coloring, not with those plastic wraparounds -- then you know that when you mess up, you have two options: rinse them off with some white vinegar and start over, or forge ahead, layer even more color on top, and hope that something presentable emerges.

Okay, so that metaphor's a bit of a stretch, but that's what came to mind when I read, earlier this week, that scientists at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, have engineered a new category of transgenic crops. The new plants -- which include broad-leafed greens such as soybeans, tomatoes, and tobacco -- harbor a bacterial gene that makes them resistant to an herbicide called dicamba.

"But we have Roundup!" you cry. "Why do we need anything else?" Well, because Roundup (active ingredient: a chemical called glyphosate) isn't working as flawlessly as it used to. According to the story in Science (sorry, subscription only), 24 percent of farmers in the northern Midwest and 29 percent in the South say they have glycophate-resistant (GR) weeds. Crop scientists in Argentina, Brazil, and Australia report GR grasses popping up too.

Wealthy nations should be held accountable for their actions

Oxfam has just taken a big step -- it wasn't easy, and they deserve heaps of kudos for it. It has called for a mandatory, global adaptation-funding regime, one that's on the right scale, or at least the right order of magnitude. It would make national obligations to pay -- to help poor and vulnerable communities adapt to the now inevitable impacts of climate change -- contingent on historical responsibility for the impacts of climate change, and on ability to pay.

I couldn't be more pleased, and not just because Oxfam's "Adaptation Financing Index" is closely related to our own work in developing a "Responsibility and Capacity Index." What's really important here is that a big outfit like Oxfam has stuck its neck out and spoken the simple truth. Let's hope they get some support for it, because they're sure going to get some pushback from the realos.

Blue lanes, cage locks, and cyclibraries

Separate bikeways are the lead actors in bike-friendly cities, but many supporting actors complete the cast: bikes on transit facilities, good traffic law enforcement, even bike "lifts" on steep hills. Three more worth mentioning are blue lanes, parking cages, and cyclibraries.

Blue lanes.

Reality checking the polls

Public opinion polls show a significant increase in the number of Americans who support strong climate action. Deeper digging shows this support is superficial, too thin to drive the rapid sociopolitical change now required. For the first time, however, a small, but measurable number of Americans -- probably no more than 3% -- identify climate change as the greatest threat. U.S. environmentalists' carefully buffered climate narrative, calculated to not frighten the majority, does not engage these "three percenters."

A significant shift in U.S. public opinion on climate has been measured in recent polls. 27% of those polled in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll between May 4-6, 2007, said global warming is "extremely important" and 26% "very important." 33% believe that global warming is the "single biggest environmental problem facing the world," according to a April 5-10, 2007 ABC News/Washington Post Poll, up from 16% in March. Public support for "immediate action" on climate has increased to 34% in January, 2007, from 23% in 1999, according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal tracking poll.

When asked to choose what is most important -- either in open-ended polling questions or picking one issue from a list -- climate change, and environmental issues in general, are barely mentioned:

On summer memories and politically correct peanut butter

The cool, sunny mornings this time of year always remind me of setting off to work each day during the first few months that I spent living in Boston. It was the summer between my junior and senior year of college, and I was working for a feminist newspaper located in an old factory near […]

Hard to believe he’s part of the Bush administration!

Everybody and their cousin has already posted on this, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it, but yesterday on NPR, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said some extraordinarily stupid things. To wit: I’m aware that global warming exists. … Whether that is a longterm concern or not, I can’t say. … … I […]

Shockingly, it’s the same as the old climate strategy

Today’s headlines are full of the news that President Bush is "unveiling a new climate strategy." If your immediate reaction is cynicism, well … looks like you learned something over the last seven years. Let’s look a little closer. In a speech today, Bush said he wants to convene a series of meetings of the […]