Latest Articles

Unseen Al Gore campaign video

On a blog about "professional presentation design" -- yes, there is such a thing -- Garr Reynolds posts about Duarte Design, the outfit that helped Al Gore design his now-famous climate-science slideshow. It includes a short interview with Nancy Duarte, the co-founder. Quite interesting.

Even better, the post led me to "Unseen Al Gore Campaign Video" (part one; part two), which consists of footage director Spike Jonze shot just before the 2000 campaign started in earnest. I can't recommend the videos highly enough -- they're fascinating. They show Gore at home, flirting with his wife, getting razzed by his daughters, joking about the campaign ... it's the first thing I've seen that really shows him as he is: a middle-aged family man who cares about public service. I wish they could have gotten circulated more widely in 2000. Check them out.

And the Sand Played On

World’s deserts will become more desert-y, says U.N. Happy World Environment Day — we got you some bad news! As climate change progresses, desert temperatures will rise up to 12.6 degrees F by the end of the century; rainfall in most deserts will decline by up to 20 percent; water will become scant, or too […]

Top ethical businesses

Business Ethics magazine has posted its list of the 100 best corporate citizens. Here are the top 10:

Wining and Declining

Global warming screwing up wine country Bad news for oenophiles: Global warming is messing with wine country. Wine grapes are highly temperature-sensitive, and if the globe gets much hotter (which smart folks say it will), famed wine-producing regions like France’s Burgundy and California’s Napa Valley may lose optimum climate for their grape varieties. Already, warmer […]

Cold Rush

Greens worry as countries scurry to set up camp in Antarctica Several dozen countries have set up camps and research stations in Antarctica, giving greens short-term fears that development will damage fragile ecosystems and long-term fears that the continent will soon be pillaged for oil, gas, and minerals. A 1959 Antarctic Treaty declares Earth’s driest, […]

Kyle Smith’s review of An Inconvenient Truth

In the right-wing tabloid New York Post, movie critic Kyle Smith has a review of An Inconvenient Truth that virtually defies mockery. It almost invites sympathy.

Right off the bat, there's this:

But there is wide disagreement about whether humans are causing global warming (climate change preceded the invention of the Escalade) and about whether we should be worried about the trends.

Um, no there isn't.

His implication that he is our only hope ... is ridiculous.

What implication? What possible fever dream did Smith pull this from?

For jaw-dropping ignorance, this is probably the coup de grace:

Americans and Climate Change: The affliction of partisanship II

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

Yesterday we heard a theory about why and when climate change became a highly partisan issue (in short: when Clinton started championing it). Today we hear mixed feelings from conference participants. Should Democrats simply try to win, and thereby establish a mandate for change? Or should they try to lure Republicans into bipartisan consensus through incremental measures? I know where I come out on this question, but I'm curious to hear what you think.

Umbra on couches

Dear Umbra, I am in the market to buy a new couch (our current couch is older than me — it’s 27!). Is it better to buy a “green” couch, a couch from a mainstream vendor, or a used couch? If used is the way to go, do you have any suggestions for finding one […]

The Environmental Wars covered

DeSmogBlog and The Commons Blog are just wrapping up their coverage of "The Environmental Wars," a conference put on by the Skeptics Society. The conference drew quite a bit of flack for featuring Michael Crichton and John Stossel as keynote speakers, but it sounds like aside from that press-hungry stunt, there was a lot of good stuff going on.

Gore interviews

There are tons and tons of Gore interviews out there -- the guy gets around -- but two in particular stand out as unusually substantive. First is this one on NPR's Fresh Air; the other is this one with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Stephanopoulos is frequently annoying, but it's long and Gore is allowed time to flesh out many of the points he's been trying to make.