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Can Sen. Warner unseat Inhofe as ranking member on Environment and Public Works Committee?

Just when you thought all the pleasant surprises of the election must be spent, one more appears in your inbox on a Friday afternoon. Senator John Warner is going to reassert his seniority on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee to be the Republicans' ranking member, forcing every polluter's favorite Senator James Inhofe into the number two position.

Warner doesn't have the greenest record in the Republican caucus, but this year he has said some interesting things about climate change. Interesting in a good way, not interesting in an Inhofe way.

‘Models don’t account for clouds’–Clouds are complex and uncertain, but unlikely to stop warming

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

Objection: Clouds are a large negative feedback that will stop any drastic warming. The climate models don't even take cloud effects into account.

Answer: All of the atmospheric global climate models used for the kind of climate projections synthesized by the IPCC take the effects of clouds into account. You can read a discussion about cloud processes and feedbacks in the IPCC TAR.

How green will the 110th Congress be?

“You’d have to go back to the Enlightenment to see such a big change in worldviews.” That’s how Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook characterized the environmental shift coming to Congress after the Democrats’ triumph over the GOP last week. Barbara Boxer. Photo: Kevin Parry/ WireImage But, hyperbole aside, what victories can enviros realistically expect […]

Eric Schlosser on America’s food industry and his delicious new film

Eric Schlosser on the set of Fast Food Nation. Photo: Matt Lankes/ © Fox Searchlight Eric Schlosser sat unassumingly — and almost out of place — in a floral armchair in a spacious, elegantly decorated suite on the 10th floor of Seattle’s Fairmont Olympic Hotel. Behind him, a poster rested on an easel. It featured […]

British kids: smarter than the rest of us

A survey of 11-14-year-old Britons found that they are more concerned about recycling and global warming than they are about having a girlfriend or boyfriend or doing their homework.

Some 74 percent of so-called "tweens" in the U.K. were concerned about climate change, while only 41 percent noted concern over dating, or whatever you'd call it at that age. About 64 percent expressed concern about their schoolwork.

Cooties Lurgy also ranked high on the list of concerns, as did getting American adults to be half as concerned as pre-pubescent kids in the rest of the world about cataclysmic climate change.

A former McDonald’s cook explains his return to the family farm

Working at McDonald’s got me to college, for which I thank the world’s largest restaurant chain. I worked there for three years, beginning at about $1 an hour, during the middle of the 20th century. Back then, a buck bought something. I consumed tons of hamburgers and fries and gallons of milkshakes for free — […]

Will it propel cycle-happy legislation?

While not quite a full-on velorution (there must be silent throngs out there waiting to usher in a full-on velorution, I'm sure of it -- bike-guard party, wherefore art thou?), this month's midterm elections in the U.S. have apparently greased the gears of the otherwise petroleum- and highway-happy lawmaking machine in the House in favor of cycle-friendly reps for the 110th Congress. Or at least, it's offered cause for hope.

Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., who helped author the 1991 law that opened the door to federal funding for bike projects, is in line to become chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a one-time bike mechanic, expects to chair the surface transportation subcommittee.

And Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., founder of the Congressional Bicycle Caucus, will either hold a senior position on the transportation committee or move to the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.

All three Democrats are strong supporters of alternative transportation who believe that bicycling can play an important role in moving people, particularly in dense urban settings, and in providing recreational opportunities.

Inhofe on Fox

Think Progress put up a video of Inhofe on Fox this morning.

I have to admit, I'm actually a little sad -- when he passes off the chairmanship in January, there will be so much less to make fun of.

Oceanographer Tim Barnet reveals the dollar amount, and other fascinating points

Tim Barnett, a leading oceanographer who just retired from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, this Monday gave a talk called Future Climate of Earth: A Sneak Preview [PDF] to a convention of fire ecologists in San Diego.

Barnett began by saying that he had seven grandkids, and he didn't like to think about the world they were going to inherit from us. He then went on to succinctly explain why we know global warming is human-caused.

Donate wild salmon instead of tuna

It's hard to believe that the holiday season is already upon us. Despite the mall stampedes, fruitcake overload, never-ending traffic jams, and hideous reindeer sweaters, I'm looking forward to spending the holidays with my family. I can almost taste my mother's mince pie, and I am ready to play backyard soccer and touch football with my daughters and my nieces and nephews.