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Paulson Jr. at Treasury

The big political news of the day is Bush's nomination of Henry M. Paulson Jr. as Treasury Secretary (ending an 18-month search for someone to occupy that thankless position). A couple of people have written to ask my take on this, so, uh ... I wish I had one.

Via TP, Paulson is the chief executive of Goldman Sachs. He's also chairman of the board of the Nature Conservancy. Goldman Sachs thinks we should do something about global warming (PDF). So does the Nature Conservancy. Clearly Paulson's on board the Sanity Train on this issue, unlike his future employers. For this reason, he's opposed by the wing nut lobby.

The other strange thing about Paulson, in the context of Bush admin. officials, is that he is by all accounts competent and respected.

Anyway, wish I knew more, but there it is. A smart, competent, environmentally aware adult has somehow found his way into the administration (assuming he's confirmed, which looks like a sure thing). We'll see how long he lasts.

(Sources tell me that this week's Muckraker will be about Paulson -- it shall answer all your questions!)

Media Shower: UK edition

Welcome to the (not-so-special) U.K. edition of Media Shower!

First off, we have the BBC's focus on climate change chaos. Over at the BBC website, you'll find eight short documentaries (which don't want to play for me), in-depth coverage of climate change (including this guide), and a SETI@home-inspired climate change experiment.

And then we have this:

This commercial is part of the Friends of the Earth "The Big Ask" campaign, which is about "tackling the biggest question the world faces -- how do we stop dangerous climate change?" Doubt you'd see an ad like this here in the States.

Memorial Day weekend movie news

What's the big movie news from Memorial Day weekend? X-Men III, opening with a record $120 million?

Nope. It's this:

Playing at four theaters, An Inconvenient Truth averaged a promising estimated $70,500 per site over the three-day weekend, the highest of the year and for a documentary. Former Vice President Al Gore's environmentalist tract has grossed $489,000 in five days, and distributor Paramount Classics plans to expand it throughout June, reaching its widest point over the Independence Day holiday.

Whose ‘Cide Are They On?

California regulating pesticide air pollution and fish farming California is trailblazing again: It aims to be the first state in the U.S. to tackle air pollution from pesticide use. State officials hope to eliminate tons (literally) of smog-forming gases that waft from pesticide-treated agricultural regions. California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation — long accused of doing […]

Thames the Breaks

England declares emergency drought, mandates conservation Thanks to 18 months of below-average rainfall, English officials have declared the country to be in an emergency drought. Homes and businesses in southeastern England face criminal prosecution and $9,000 or more in fines for nonessential water use like filling swimming pools or watering golf courses. Ironically, golf courses […]

Soon We Can Just Call It the Styx

Yangtze River so polluted it’s on the verge of death The Yangtze River is “cancerous” with pollution — mainly industrial waste and agricultural runoff — according to reports in China’s state media. Experts estimate that within five years, up to 70 percent of its water may be unusable, particularly as drinking water for the 186 […]

It’s the End of the World as We Blow It

Ecosystems don’t like hurricanes any more than we do With hurricane season approaching, scientists are voicing worries about the ability of coastal ecosystems to recover from repeated storms. Some 118 square miles of coastal wetlands were lost to Hurricane Katrina, and the Gulf Coast is vulnerable to more loss, as many islands that had acted […]

Americans and Climate Change: Incentives: Politicians

"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.

Why aren't politicians more eager to champion the issue of global warming? Why did Al Gore fail to get any traction with it in 2000? Find out below!

Adaptation

The other issue that's come up in Pielke-Roberts Mild Disagreement '06 is the relative importance of mitigation vs. adaptation, climate-change wise. A couple of issues need to be distinguished here.

First, the substance: According to Roger, the "Kyoto Protocol, as is the FCCC under which it was negotiated, is in fact strongly biased against adaptation." It frames money spent on adaptation as money directly drained from mitigation (which it says would make adaptation unnecessary). I'm no expert on the FCCC, but this jibes with what I've read, and I agree with Roger that it's not a smart way of framing things.

Bucking conventional wisdom: the new black

A couple days ago, Roger Pielke Jr. posted about "non-skeptic heretics," a group of which he and Gregg Easterbrook are allegedly a part. I left a slightly intemperate comment about it, to which Roger responded at some length. Several issues are getting run together. I'm going to take them one at a time.

The least significant in the grand scheme of things, but most personally aggravating to me, is this question of a "third way" (in general, not on climate change in particular).

It is conventional wisdom now that every issue is defined by two shrill, partisan camps, and that it is a mark of intellectual integrity to choose a path between them.

As a heuristic, this may have once had some value, but today it's become a fetish. A tic.

Let's be clear: There is no empirical significance in falling between, or even just outside, two opposing positions. A position's truth value has nothing to do with its number of adherents, or its adherents' rhetorical acumen. The desire not to be a "joiner," not to belong to a "tribe," is a matter of temperament, not empiricism.