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  • Bill Gates disses energy efficiency, renewables, and near-term climate action while embracing the ma

      Billionaires say the darndest things!  The above screen shot of a nonsensical Bill Gates piece dissing energy efficiency came from his website, The Gates Notes, which turned into a HuffPost piece, and then Yahoo News. Yes, even the very rich are very confused about energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate policy, and global warming — […]

  • The Washington Post goes tabloid

    It is no longer possible to hide the decline of a once great newspaper, no longer possible to hide the decline of the paper that broke the Watergate story, but is now hanging itself on the Climategate story (see James Fallows’ blog). The newspaper that just editorialized, “Many — including us — find global warming […]

  • Lomborg v. Monbiot: liveblogging the Munk debate on climate change

    Editorâ€Editor’s note: The chat’s now over, but you can replay it in full. Today I’ll be liveblogging a debate on how the world should respond to climate change. Arguing for a vigorous response will be Elizabeth May, head of Canada’s Green Party, and noted author/thinker George Monbiot. Arguing for giving climate change a low priority, […]

  • Washington Times: “Obama digs in on global warming”

    The Washington Times is the other DC newspaper, the “conservative” one.  That’s assuming you can call the primary DC paper — the one that loves un-fact-checked op-ed pieces attacking climate science and clean energy and that is now run by former Wall Street Journal editors — not conservative (see “Washington Post recycles another disinformation-filled WSJ […]

  • Washington Post mocks Inhofe as "last flat earther"

    It must be very lonely being the last flat-earther. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, committed climate-change denier, found himself in just such a position Tuesday morning as the Senate environment committee, on which he is the ranking Republican, took up legislation on global warming. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was in talks with Democrats over a […]

  • Interviews support my reporting on SuperFreakonomics

    Caldeira, like the vast majority of climate scientists, believes cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions is our only real chance to avoid runaway climate change. “Carbon dioxide is the right villain,” Caldeira wrote on his Web site in reply. He told Joe Romm, the respected climate blogger who broke the story, that he had […]

  • Anatomy of Debunking

      UPDATE:  For an independent vindication of my reporting here, see Bloomberg interview of Dubner and Caldeira backs up my reporting on error-riddled Superfreakonomics. Dubner is baffled that Caldeira “doesn’t believe geoengineering can work without cutting emissions.” I wish I didn’t have to waste valuable blogging time writing this post to set the record straight.  […]

  • Error-riddled 'SuperFreakonomics,' Part 2

    UPDATE: For an even bigger shocker, read Myhrvold’s “rebuttal,” which actually endorses my main critique (!):  Nathan Myhrvold jumps the shark — and jumps ship on Levitt and Dubner (on their blog!) asserting: “Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! […]

  • ‘SuperFreakonomics’ is ‘patent nonsense’

    Any religion, meanwhile, has its heretics, and global warming is no exception. That staggeringly anti-scientific statement (page 170) is just one of many, many pieces of outright nonsense from SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. In fact, human-caused global warming is well-established science, far better established than any […]