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Ford: “Tough”

Two California drivers fight Ford to keep their electric vehicles An around-the-clock protest began Friday in Sacramento, Calif., to save two electric vehicles from being repossessed and scrapped by their maker. The electricity-powered Ford Ranger pickup trucks were two of many produced by Ford Motor Co. during a new-vehicle pilot program in 1999 and then […]

The Maoist That Roared

China tries to balance need for energy with environmental caution China’s economy, as we report with obsessive regularity, is growing like gangbusters, and with it grows the country’s need for energy. One response to this need is an aggressive push to develop nuclear energy: Conservative estimates project the commissioning of two new reactors a year […]

The Axis of Intransigence

U.S. pushes to remove global-warming references from disaster talks The U.S. delegation to an upcoming global conference on natural disasters is pushing to have references to global warming removed from the U.N. action plan to be ratified there. The document cites global warming as one factor among many leading to “a future where disasters could […]

British science adviser harassed by industry lobbyists

Sir David King, the U.K.'s chief scientific adviser, says American fossil-fuel lobbyists are pestering and hectoring him as he goes around the world talking about the impending dangers of global warming. King ticked off some powerful folks last year when he said climate change poses more of a global threat than terrorism and blasted the U.S. for not taking the lead in addressing the problem. Reports The Independent:

Since then, he has given many lectures to international audiences but found individuals among them who are there solely to create the impression that he is presenting biased information.

"They'll be in the audience to stand up and raise questions to get into the audience's mind that I haven't represented a balanced view," he said.

"You have a group of lobbyists, some of whom are chasing me around the planet, which I'm chuffed about because it means they are worrying about what I'm saying, and these lobbyists stand up after I've given an hour's talk and say, 'There are scientists who disagree with you'," Sir David said.

"I always say, 'Which bit of the science that I've just presented to you are you challenging'? I don't get the answer."

Don’t Mess With Texas — Unless You’re Buying the Hot Dogs

Texas chemical plants cause problems for nearby residents The Houston Chronicle is running an investigative series on chemical plants and their effects on nearby residents, and it ain’t pretty. There’s a fair bit of evidence suggesting that companies dramatically underreport their annual emissions. On top of that, accidental leaks — or what the industry calls […]

Photos of the once-mighty, now-drained Owens Lake

Owens Lake, on the eastern flanks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in southeastern California, was, at its peak, a 200-square-mile perennial lake. Located at the terminus of the Owens River, it held water continuously for at least 800,000 years. It is now an extreme example of the destabilizing effect of surface-water extraction in desert regions. […]

Dirty Pretty Things

Two major cosmetic companies will omit harmful chemicals from products Revlon Inc. and L’Oreal USA have pledged to follow the European Union’s relatively strict new anti-toxics rule in formulating their perfumes, hair dyes, makeup, and other products for sale in the U.S. The two companies were convinced to take the step by San Francisco’s Breast […]

Near Death Experience

Living in pollution hotspots ups chance of kiddie cancer, study says Many childhood cancers likely have environmental causes, according to a new study from the U.K.’s Birmingham University. Women who live within a half-mile radius of emission hotspots such as industrial areas and major roads, it says, are two to four times more likely than […]

Receding Blair Line

Blair government tried to weaken E.U. climate-change targets The U.K. environmental community is all atwitter over revelations that senior officials in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government tried to remove tough greenhouse-gas reduction targets from the E.U.’s official climate policy. Specifically, they asked that language calling for 50 to 80 percent reductions (from 1990 levels, by […]

Dimming hopes

Let's get one thing straight: Grist was into global dimming before global dimming was cool.

Now: A BBC documentary is pushing, with great hype (not to say hysterics), the notion that efforts to reduce fossil fuel use will reverse global dimming and thus -- irony! -- accelerate global warming. I have already grumpily blogged this once. Now the folks over at RealClimate, about whose site I use the adjective "indispensable" with numbing regularity, have addressed the subject, saying, in effect, Slow down, cowboy! We don't really know that much about dimming.

Now that some perspective has been added to the hype, I'm certain that wingnuts will stop forwarding around the new dimming stories as proof that driving SUVs is a virtue. Right?

Update [2005-1-21 15:17:39 by Dave Roberts]: More from RealClimate.