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  • Of ice and biomass

    As one of thousands still without power after the Northeast’s ice storm last Thursday, I’m feeling more thankful than usual for my woodstove (it’s also great that my place of employment dodged the storm, so I can at least escape the darkness at the Orion office). I’ve got three cords of wood stacked up to […]

  • After Poland talks, a new reality starts to set in, says McKibben; 350 ppm must be the goal

    I spent the last few nights of the recent Poznan climate conference sleeping in the By the Way youth hostel, an excellent accommodation filled with excellent young people who had done excellent work at the negotiations. After the final day of deliberations, many of these young people visited the doubtless excellent discotheques of Poznan, returning […]

  • Bush appointee reportedly holding up transition efforts at NASA

    Transition efforts at NASA are not going smoothly, reports Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel: NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified” to judge his rocket program, the Orlando Sentinel has learned. […]

  • Al Gore calls for 350 ppm goal at Poznan climate summit

    In a speech at the U.N. climate summit in Poland today, Al Gore argued that older targets for reducing global-warming pollution are out of date, and that world leaders should aim to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which […]

  • Clean coal salesman Joe Lucas shucks and jives for NPR

    This NPR story on clean coal is astounding. Pardon the long post, but I had to transcribe several parts of it so you wouldn’t think I’m making it up. The story begins with Al Gore making (and repeating several times) a single point: clean coal — insofar as that means coal power generation that has […]

  • Hansen and Danny Bloom inspire vicious hate speech on web

    I interviewed author Mark Bowen a year ago about James Hansen, the great climatologist, with whom Bowen wrote the book Censoring Science. The discussion turned to the intensity of reaction against Hansen from those who refuse to accept the reality of global warming. Bowen mentioned that Hansen has gotten some death threats, though he considered […]

  • James Hansen’s recent post on climate change

    James Hansen recently posted a new letter on climate change called “Tell Barack Obama the Truth — The Whole Truth” [PDF] on his website. In it, he lays out many of his ideas on how to avert climate catastrophe, and I will cherry-pick a few quotes here: A carbon cap that slows emissions of CO2 […]

  • Hansen wants the skeptics thrown in jail–Did James Hansen really want to try the climate skeptics?

    (Part of the How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide)   Objection: In his June 23, 2008 testimony before the United States Congress, James Hansen called for the punishment of climate change skeptics for “crimes against humanity.” This is a mockery of free speech, the antithesis of scientific investigation, and a clear indication that […]

  • The real truth about stabilizing at 350 ppm

    To James Hansen (and his fellow 350 ppm-ers): You make a compelling case we must ultimately return atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. But you have made an uncompelling case about how President-elect Obama should go about achieving 350 ppm in your new draft essay "Tell […]