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Americans and Climate Change: The risks of packaging climate change as an energy issue

"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.

Below the fold is the last bit of the report's third chapter, "Packaging climate change as an energy issue." It's quite short! It discusses the risks of tying climate change too closely to energy concerns.

Why green-group canvassing operations need an overhaul

It’s that time of year again on college campuses: final exams have given way to Frisbee on the quad, boxes are packed, and every telephone pole bears a bright yellow poster that says, “Summer Jobs with the Campaign to Save the Environment!” There must be a better way. Many a student has torn off that […]

Fuel Me Once, Shame on You

GM promotion will cap gas at $1.99 a gallon for SUV buyers In a promotion that begins today, General Motors promised to cap gasoline prices at $1.99 a gallon for a year for customers in California and Florida who purchase certain new full-size SUVs or midsize cars. That’s right: if you buy a gas-guzzler from […]

A Twist of Organophosphate

EPA scientists say they’re being pressured on pesticide studies U.S. EPA managers and pesticide-industry officials have been pressuring agency scientists to skip steps in pesticide testing and allow continued use of some potentially harmful pesticides, says a letter sent to EPA chief Stephen Johnson by union leaders representing agency employees. The “integrity of the science […]

We’ve Been Cartwheeling to Work

Gas prices spur Americans to change behavior Americans hit in the pocketbook by high gas prices are, shockingly, changing their consumptive behavior. A survey by Consumer Reports found that over a third of American drivers are pondering getting a more fuel-efficient vehicle in place of their current one; half of those are considering a hybrid, […]

Nuke Skytalker

Bush pushes nuclear power at home and abroad President Bush has embraced nuclear power with a vengeance (on us?). On a tour of a nucular … er, nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania yesterday, Bush called for the construction of new nuke plants to help curb greenhouse-gas emissions. “Let’s quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases […]

Umbra on canola oil

Dear Umbra, I recently saw “organic canola oil” on a salad dressing bottle. I looked up the origin of canola oil, and it looks like it is a genetic modification of rapeseed. I thought organic certification disallowed genetically modified foods. What’s the scoop? Tom Grundy Nevada City, Calif. Dearest Tom, Have you noticed yet that […]

Gore’s new flick, An Inconvenient Truth, improbably succeeds

It’s something of a miracle that An Inconvenient Truth, the chronicle of Al Gore’s quest to raise alarm about “climate chaos,” exists at all. A movie with a scantily clad Jessica Alba presenting a computer slideshow on climate science is implausible enough. Al Gore doing it, well … even C-SPAN could be forgiven for having […]

When the Rivers Run Dry

After reading a few things -- namely this from Ezra Klein, this from Brad Plumer, and a Prospect article by Jon Margolis -- I resolved to learn more about the world's water woes. After all, I'm already a giant energy nerd, so why not become a giant water nerd?

Perhaps I should lose some weight, and be a more modestly-sized nerd. In any case, number one on my reading list was When the Rivers Run Dry by Fred Pearce. Read the Salon review here.

The one-word review of Pearce's book is: Terrifying. Whether he's writing about the Indian peasant farmers who draw from poisoned wells every day, the oblivious Arizonans who run fountains in the desert, or the apocalyptic moonscape that is the Aral Sea (once a thriving fishery, now a toxic cesspool), Pearce manages to convey the immense wreckage human activity is making of our lifeblood. No, not oil. The other precious fluid.

Harvesting energy

Freaky. Check out this BBC piece on harvesting energy expended by human bodies and the vibrations caused by transport like trains and subways.