Articles by Joseph Romm

Global warming ’tis merely a flesh wound

As Pedro Moura Costa, founder of the carbon credit trading company EcoSecurities, explained:

If you pick a winner in the right technology in the search for a low carbon economy you are talking about potentially billions. It is really the holy grail.

The EU's Emissions Trading Scheme is giving investors in the carbon market a glimpse of the future, and it's a "green goldrush."

Smells like menthol to me

In the House Oversight Committee's hearing on political interference with the scientific evidence of climate change, Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) proclaimed in disbelief and frustration that, "Today we have a planet that's smoking!" He, like many before him, likened the campaign to cast doubt on global warming with the tobacco industry's campaign in the 1990s to distort information on the health impacts of smoking cigarettes.

In early 2007, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a report along those same lines, exposing the disinformation campaign by ExxonMobil which used tobacco industry-like tactics. They also published an online periodical table that serves as an A-Z Guide to Political Interference in Science, which one of the witnesses to the House hearing brought up in her testimony.

And what should that tell us?

The IPCC's official total temperature increase since 1850 has gone from .6° Celsius to .76° C (or about 1.4° Fahrenheit).

The Fourth Assessment also explains that, "For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2° C per decade is projected for a range of [emission scenarios]. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about .1° C per decade would be expected."

Their best estimate for a low emissions scenario is still a temperature increase of 1.8° C by 2100. Their best estimate for a worst case emissions scenario projects 4.0° C -- and recent research suggests that would give us sea level rise of 6 inches a decade in 2100.

Whaddya say we try to stick with the low emissions scenario?

Bush underfunds efficiency

While Bush talks a good game on energy security, he doesn't back the rhetoric up with action. That is especially true when it comes to his own budget, as made clear in a press release from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy: