Latest Articles

‘The scientists aren’t even sure’ — No scientist ever is

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Even the scientists don't know that the climate is changing more than normal and if it's our fault or not. If you read what they write it is full of "probably," "likely," "evidence of" and all kinds of qualifiers. If they don't know for sure, why should we worry yet?

Now it will cause drought in Australia

AUSTRALIA'S crippling drought will worsen if the Howard government succeeds in its push for nuclear power, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has told a conference.

Addressing the New Zealand Labour Party conference in Rotorua today, Mr Beattie said an independent study commissioned by the Queensland government showed a nuclear power station would use 25 per cent more water than a coal-fired power station.

(...)

"Many towns and shires in our state are struggling to get enough drinking water, let alone enough to satisfy the amount a nuclear station would need to guzzle."

It just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Bashing carbon emissions just makes sense

I understand Jason's intent in his post about ideologues, and I agree (almost) without reservation that environmentalism needs to stay firmly in the realm of reality, facts, and evidence while eschewing fantasy, whims, and delusional optimism -- or, for that matter, delusional pessimism.

However (you knew that was coming) ...

‘One hundred years is not enough’–Yes it is

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: One hundred and some years of global surface temperatures is not long enough to draw any conclusions from or worry about anyway.

Answer: The reliable instrumental record only goes back 150 years in the CRU analysis, 125 in the NASA analysis. This is a simple fact that we are stuck with. 2005 was the warmest year recorded in that period according to NASA, a very close second according to CRU. Because of this limit, it is not enough to say today that these are the warmest years since 150 years ago, rather one should say 'at least':

1998 and 2005 are the warmest two years in at least the last 150.

See post-bovine methane generate clean electricity!

On some days it's especially fabulous to be an eco-scribe. I had one of those days on Wednesday, Oct. 25. As part of a group from the Society of Environmental Journalists, I got to tour Vermont's very first cow-power operation, in which the non-dairy output of a herd of Holsteins is turned into cleanly generated electricity. It's got the potential to help more of Vermont's beleaguered dairy farmers stay in business, while cutting their operation costs over time and keeping the methane generated by decomposing cow poop out of our greenhousing atmosphere.

The tour took place at Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport, Vermont, owned by the same family for about three generations. We begin in the barn, a vast structure lit with natural light ...

... and home to the farm's many, many Holsteins:

Liveblogging it, only two days later

At the 16th annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists, there was a panel on media coverage of global warming. One of the panelists was Marc Morano, Sen. James Inhofe's right-hand man (ha ha). The full roster of panelists:

• Andrew Revkin, Environment Reporter, The New York Times
• Bill Blakemore, Senior Correspondent, ABC News
• Dan Fagin, Associate Professor of Journalism/Associate Director of the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, New York University
• Marc Morano, Director of Communications, Environment and Public Works Committee, U.S. Senate

Via DeSmogBlog (where I stole the picture above) comes this full audio recording (MP3) of the panel. I'm listening to it now. I shall blog along:

Denialists are not the only ones

There are many who scoff at the notion that climate change is really happening; they are one type of ideologue -- the perpetual skeptic impervious to reason and scientific inquiry.

But there is another type.

An interview on planning for climate change

An interview I recently did has been published in the newsletter of Caisse des Depots, a state-owned financial institution that performs public-interest missions on behalf of the French government. Also quoted in the interview is Patrick Criqui, Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Department of the Grenoble LEPII. You can get the full newsletter here (PDF). It's all about the problems posed by the long timescale climate change operates on, and is definitely worth reading.

Here is the interview:

‘Warming is due to the Urban Heat Island effect’ — No, it isn’t

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: The apparent rise of global average temperatures is actually an illusion due to the urbanization of land around weather stations, the Urban Heat Island effect.

Lots of random catch-up

Time for some housecleaning. That's right: a link dump! Here's some random stuff I've had open in Firefox (have you seen 2.0?) tabs for varying lengths of time: