Articles by David Roberts

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.

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.

Americans and Climate Change: The affliction of partisanship I

"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.

This chapter tackles one of the biggies: partisanship (I'll publish the first half today, the second tomorrow). This was, in my own opinion, one of the weaker chapters, probably because the carefully balanced set of conference participants and the scrupulously apolitical tone of the report prevent its authors from stating the obvious: Democrats are begging for bipartisan action on climate change. It is Republicans that remain resolutely partisan on the issue. But please, share your thoughts in comments, especially if you disagree.