Latest Articles

Kevin Bacon launches SixDegrees.org

Kevin Bacon has gone über-meta. The once-ubiquitous film actor has taken the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” trivia game — itself based on the already-meta concept that everyone (and everything?) is somehow connected — to a whole new level with a new charity-based website: www.SixDegrees.org is about using this idea to accomplish something good. It’s […]

Characteristically grim

Lordy, the news and commentary on green matters is coming so fast and heavy that I can barely link to it all, much less contribute. (For the love of God, people, stop emailing me interesting stuff!) Here’s something to chew on: James Kunstler, sick and tired of being accused of doom-mongering without offering solutions, offers […]

So says the Wall Street Journal

Speaking of good work by the MSM, the Wall Street Journal on Saturday ran an interesting little news story by John Fialka on why the long-term outlook for global warming may be "more dire than suggested" by the IPCC's just-released Fourth Assessment on Climate Change.

Two reasons: first, as Joe Romm mentioned in a post below, the report doesn't fully take into account the melting of inland glaciers. That's according to Tom Delmore, a climate modeler with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association.

Second, because of the limits of computing power, the report probably underestimates the amount of warming that will be caused by increasing amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere. That's according to Jim Butler, also with NOAA.

The story ran under an oddly inane headline, but it's well-reported, and very much worth reading.

If You Blog It, They Will Come

A 21st-century gold rush hits the Brazilian Amazon Our fair city of Seattle was once a gold rush town, a way station for loading up on supplies and sex before heading to the Yukon. So we feel an affinity for the mud-caked prospectors combing a remote stretch of Brazilian rainforest in hopes of finding nuggets […]

Now Who’s a Moonbeam?

On heels of climate report, governments and businesses get real Heeding a call from French President Jacques Chirac, 46 nations are backing a plan to create a powerful new U.N. Environment Organization that could police climate offenders. Egregious emitters Russia, China, India, and the U.S. didn’t leap up and down volunteering to join, but Chirac […]

The Triple Threat

New plan would nearly triple Yellowstone daily snowmobile limit Gentlemen, stroke your engines: The National Park Service has issued a draft plan that would nearly triple the number of snowmobiles allowed into Yellowstone National Park each day, from 250 to 720. While the limit is lower than the average number entering the park daily before […]

Unite to condemn right-wing attacks on science

Alan Sokal is is a professor of physics famous for perpetrating the Sokal Hoax, wherein he submitted a parody article to a postmodernist journal of semiotics called Social Text. The editors and peer reviewers [correction: it’s not peer-reviewed] there saw nothing amiss with a "transformative hermeneutics of gravity," so the piece got published. While the […]

to have a crush on the Ah-nold?

… to have a crush on the Ah-nold? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proven to be many things during his tenure, among them surprisingly green-leaning. Today he proves that even when he’s being catty and “uncensored,” he’s still a gentleman. Some of our higher-ups could learn a thing or two from him, don’t you think?

NYT energy/environment coverage is top notch

We spend a lot of time out here in the Blog-O-Sphere© bagging on the MSM©, so it’s worth pointing out when they get something right. And you can’t say enough good things about The New York Times‘ energy and environment coverage. Its Energy Challenge series is the best thing going on our energy conundrum, and […]

If you haven’t seen it already …

… don’t miss Andrew’s piece on the IPCC report.