Latest Articles
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And 92 Percent Think Heather Mills Is a Real Trouper
New poll declares environmental movement still around Just in time for Earth Day, a USA Today/Gallup poll has hit the scene to tell Americans how they feel about the environment. To wit: 60 percent of us believe that global warming is happening now, and even more of us think it will, uh, continue to happen. […]
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Tunnels everywhere!
First a train tunnel between Africa and Europe, now the Russians want to build the long-dreamt-of tunnel between Russia and Alaska. The tunnel would theoretically carry natural gas, oil, electricity, and fiber-optic wires.
The more and better tunnels we have for rail, the more competitive rail will be with less efficient transport systems like air travel. This is better for energy efficiency and therefore the environment.
This project still has a lot of problems -- it's not like there's a lot of spare rail up above the Arctic Circle, necessitating lots of construction -- but I'm sure Ted Stevens is already salivating.
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It’s descended completely into ‘small steps’
When I read stuff like this … A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds that more Americans than ever — 60%, up from 48% a decade ago — believe that global warming has begun to affect the climate. A slightly larger percentage think it will cause major or extreme changes in climate and weather during the next […]
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Oy
A panel of retired generals thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. The U.N. Security Council thinks global warming is an urgent national security threat. But wait! We forgot to ask Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R)! Sensenbrenner questioned "why global warming has suddenly become an issue of national defense" and afterward accused politicians […]
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Bush is working with a much stronger consensus
One argument in defense of George W. Bush's lack of action on climate change is some variation of this: "Bill Clinton wasn't any better ... he never sent the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate."
This is true. But it also ignores one important fact.
The science of climate change has improved dramatically since the mid-'90s. In its 1995 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarized our knowledge about climate change by saying ...
... the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate ...
This is weak brew, and given the mixed evidence connecting human activities with warming, it was not at all clear exactly how much action to address climate change was warranted.
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It’s hard out there for a skeptic
After 20 years of disproportionate media coverage, climate contrarians have started being ignored. It would be impossible to overstate the depth of my sympathy. Impossible, I tell you. Update [2007-4-19 16:17:10 by David Roberts]: As an addendum: actual climate scientists think coverage is already “too balanced.” And by balanced, I’m pretty sure they mean “balanced.”
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Good stuff
I’ll leave it to Gar to judge if the targets are sufficiently aggressive, but either way I’m happy to see new legislation on energy efficiency being proposed in Congress. This stuff isn’t sexy and doesn’t garner much media attention, but — as we keep saying — efficiency is the low-hanging fruit. Time to eat some […]
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… before nature does it for us
Following a recent study forecasting permanent drought in the southwest U.S. in coming decades comes this news in today's Salt Lake Tribune. It's a proposal being floated to pipe some of the already dwindling Lake Powell reservoir (currently just half full) in a new direction, to three thirsty counties in southern Utah. Living Rivers' End Lake Powell Campaign says that draining Powell would actually add water to the Colorado River system, given the evaporative losses the lake suffers every day, but federal and state agencies are so far blunt to good logic, which is a shame, when restoring natural flows and water tables along the length of the river would benefit both humans and ecosystems. Seems like nature is going to drain the lake for us, so why not get on with it?
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This is what we’ve come to
This article is just plain bizarre — a great illustration of how skewed and narrow the mainstream energy dialogue has become. It’s allegedly about the new "war on oil" in the U.S. (Oh good, another war.) Apparently, though, that war consists of firing away wildly with exactly one weapon: ethanol. Here’s the frame the author […]
