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Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity answers questions

Kassie Siegel. What’s your job title? I work for the Center for Biological Diversity as director of the Climate, Air, and Energy Program. What does your organization do? The Center for Biological Diversity works to protect imperiled plants and animals, the wild places they depend on, and, by extension, our own well-being. We are probably […]

Some clarifications and such

Several issues and questions have come up around the URGE2 concept, most of which I anticipated but was too lazy to write about on my first post. Forthwith, a few notes, caveats, and explanations. First, remember this is conceived as a communication device, not a complete or ideal description of green policy utopia. It has […]

It ain’t pretty

According to this video (below the fold), the Chevy Volt -- GM's much ballyhooed plug-in hybrid concept car -- sounds like a jet engine taking off as it tops out at somewhere between 6 to 7 mph.

Conspiracy theorists, start your engines.

The first step in international action

DR: If you were emperor for a day — or just president of the U.S. — what would your international approach be? TT: No. 1 is to lead by example. When Tony Blair came can sat down with Arnold and I before the summit, he took us aside and said, "Look, what you are doing […]

More on ‘Hell and High Water’

Joe Romm, author of Hell and High Water, wrote me about the review I posted earlier. I referred to the book as "depressing," but the tone is frank, not truly gloomy. Romm has none of Lovelock's penchant for drama.

Nonetheless, depression really was my reaction, because I'm familiar with Romm's work. He is known as a level-headed, optimistic analyst. His book is no exception -- he documents the problem and the (quite mainstream) solutions he endorses throughly and meticulously. So what is the problem?

Buried treasures herein

Too many tabs open! Got to … jettison … some links … In a short piece for the NYT Week in Review, Andy Revkin covers the basics of climate change using (as far as I know) a new metaphor: the evidence for global warming is like a pointillist painting, clear in its broad outlines but […]

A review of Joe Romm’s new book

Joseph Romm's Hell and High Water may be the most depressing book on global warming I've ever read.

He writes of a "Planetary Purgatory" [UPDATE - by the 22nd Century], where sea level rises 20 feet, many coastal cities are subject to such frequent hurricanes they are abandoned, and most of the Greenland ice mass melts. What are today considered heat waves become normal summers, with more and more forest and agricultural land lost to fire and drought.

Here's the really bad news: this is not what Romm is trying to avoid, but what he hopes to settle for.

China got troubles

DR: Bush’s token response to global warming is to argue for clean coal and nuclear power. To the extent he’s involved in any international discussion, it’s the Pacific pact, a trade deal with these emerging markets for old coal and nuclear technology. TT: Bush jumps in a long list of presidents of both parties who […]

Being green on a budget

For all the low-income environmentalists wandering through Gristmill, this week we’re launching a new, sorta-regular column, “Ask a Brokeass.” As your resident Gristmill brokeass, I’ll be (attempting to) address the concerns of folks with skinny wallets and big hearts. If the organics section at Safeway makes you queasy and the conventional veggies section wrecks you […]

Bush promises big change on global warming

According to the Guardian, Bush has finally agreed to give Blair a pony: George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials. Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United […]