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  • Texas governor launches bold prayer-based climate initiative

    Texas is facing unprecedented droughts and wildfires that have consumed more than a million acres. Combating climate change could mean staving off conditions that would make droughts and fires on this scale much more common. So Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is taking swift action to remediate the climate by … calling for three days […]

  • How much could climate change cost your state?

    No idea why they got someone's dad to narrate this video, but the information in it is pretty startling. According to this group, the American Security Project, costs racked up by climate change could include: $9.3 billion a year in lost agriculture revenues in the Plains states $3.6-$6.1 billion over 20 years in infrastructure costs […]

  • Charles Manson does his best to kill green credibility

    Boy, the green movement is just racking up the valuable allies these days, isn't it? Apparently cult leader/murderer/#1 Beatles fan Charles Manson has incorporated global warming into his particular brand of crazy, telling Spanish Vanity Fair: "Everyone's God and if we don't wake up to that there's going to be no weather because our polar […]

  • Here’s what Earth was like last time CO2 was this high

    Last time there was this much CO2 in the atmosphere was 3 million years ago, in the Pliocene era. What can that tell us about what we're in for? The world will probably keep warming. Sea levels will probably keep rising. Ice sheets will probably keep melting. Saber-tooth tigers? NOT OUT OF THE QUESTION. Okay, […]

  • Stalking the wild salamanders of Manhattan [UPDATED]

    Perfectly at home.Photo: Sarah GoodyearIf I asked you where the picture above was probably taken, I don’t think your first answer would be Manhattan. But that’s exactly where I found this fine-looking red-backed salamander: In a brushy, overgrown part of a park in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. This is the second […]

  • Supreme Court set to weigh in on whether we can hold companies responsible for climate change

    Tomorrow, the Supreme Court is set to rule on American Electric Power vs. Connecticut, a case where the state of Connecticut is suing a power company for contributing to global warming. Trying to research the legal details of this case is making me cry, so I hope you people appreciate the following bullet points, which […]

  • Bill McKibben’s must-watch speech at Power Shift

    Bill McKibben gave a fiery speech to young climate activists Saturday night at Power Shift 2011. Here’s the video and transcript: All right, listen up. Very few people can ever say that they are in the single most important place they could possibly be, doing the single most important thing they could possibly be doing. […]

  • A leading expert withdraws his name from the Climate Shift report

    Matthew Nisbet’s conclusions don’t match his own report’s data.Professor Matthew Nisbet of American University has written an error-riddled, self-contradictory, demonstrably false report, “Climate Shift: Clear Vision for the Next Decade of Public Debate” [PDF]. The 99-page report’s two central, but ridiculous, claims are: The environmental movement outspent opponents during the climate bill debate. Media coverage […]

  • The planet strikes back: Why we underestimate the Earth and overestimate ourselves

    The Earth may look glum, but it’s not to be messed with.Photo: John LeGearThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. In his 2010 book Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, environmental scholar and activist Bill McKibben writes of a planet so devastated by global […]

  • How to explain climate change to Joe Sixpack

    (click to embiggen) Look, not everyone's motivated by the threat of extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and threatened habitats. But nobody likes warm beer. Use this chart to put climate change in perspective for the beer guzzler in your life. (Note: Will not work in Britain.)