Climate Climate & Energy

And does it well

The New Yorker has a great profile of Amory Lovins written by journalist, book author, and interviewee Elizabeth Kolbert. (It’s not online — check last week’s issue.) It’s a fantastic piece, really capturing Lovins’ entrepreneurial drive not just to do research and develop strategies but to evangelize for his perspective. He’s tireless trying to get […]

Umbra on tree planting

Dear Umbra, My wife recently heard a program on NPR where an expert on global warming said that planting trees in the Northern Hemisphere plays a negligible role in fighting global warming, while playing a significant role in the Southern Hemisphere. Do you have any light to shed on this? Randy Cunningham, Confused Tree-Hugger Cleveland, […]

New report says there’s a ton waiting to be used

From an MIT press release: A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in […]

Do You See What IPCC?

World braces for much-anticipated international climate report Tired of guessing what President Bush will say tomorrow, some have moved on to guessing what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will say Feb. 2. Thanks to leaks from the ranks of more than 2,500 scientists and officials involved in the multi-year creation and review of the […]

All This Progress is Making Us Woozy

Massachusetts to join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative after all Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), reversing a decision by predecessor Mitt Romney (R), has announced that his state will join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a now eight-state pact that seeks to cut Northeast emissions beginning in 2009. “We want everyone to know that Massachusetts will […]

Capsize Does Matter

Beached British cargo ship leaks oil, shipping containers, motorcycles A damaged British cargo ship beached off the country’s coast is leaking oil, losing containers full of toxic materials, and threatening a World Heritage Site. On a happier note, it’s provided a beachcombing bonanza, with items including BMW motorcycles, exhaust system parts, and wine barrels washing […]

Watch

The Energy Star Alliance is running a public service announcement profiling a fictional family powering their house with static electricity.

It's a pretty funny commercial; I wish I knew the ad firm that did it.

Eh, why bother

Of course not. That would release CO2, and we'd have to buy an offset or plant a tree or something.

I jest, of course. The reason this comes up is a flaming debate going on right now.

Over on the weather channel blog, Heidi Cullen asks:

If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval.

(FYI: AMS is the American Meteorological Society.)

Marc Morano, the high-strung Inhofe staffer, responded on the EPW blog:

Gloom and Doom With a Sense of Doomed-er

Doomsday Clock ticks to 11:55 p.m., thanks in part to climate change Cue ominous music: We’re edging closer to annihilation, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ famed Doomsday Clock — a symbolic measurement of how close civilization stands to ultra-mega-doom, or “midnight.” Yesterday, the group pushed its famed ticker two minutes forward to 11:55 […]

There are some good ones

DR: Let’s talk legal issues. I can see the analogy between cigarettes causing lung cancer and burning oil causing asthma. You have a reasonably distinct causal chain. You can reasonably point to knowledge on the part of the oil companies. But when it comes to global warming, you have a long and tenuous causal chain, […]