Ronald Reagan, the most beloved Republican president of our era, would act to avoid the oncoming train wreck that is climate change. Believe it or not. That is the contention of George Shultz, Reagan's long-term Secretary of State, and by God, Shultz has data to back up his viewpoint. He writes (in the Washington Post thisContinue reading “What would Reagan do about climate change?”
Category Archives: climate
A song and prayer for rain on a hot spring day in Ojai
In the first chapter of the climate book that caught the imagination of The Guardian (and myself), called This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein argues that we are entering an era of climate change cognitive dissonance: Meanwhile, each supercharged natural disaster produces new irony-laden snapshots of a climate increasingly inhospitable to the very industries most responsibleContinue reading “A song and prayer for rain on a hot spring day in Ojai”
Good news for the world; bad news for California?
Today in the LA Times, Jay Famiglietti, a scientist who oversees the data gathered by the pair of gravity-measuring satellites known as GRACE, and who as a result has as good an understanding as anyone of California's groundwater supplies, revealed that California has but one year left of water: As difficult as it may beContinue reading “Good news for the world; bad news for California?”
NASA vs. Ted Cruz: Round One
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been spoiling for a fight with NASA administrators every since GOP triumphed in the elections last fall. He has taken the helm of the Senate subcommittee that overseas NASA, which flies under the awkward moniker of the Space, Science, and Competiveness Subcommittee. Cruz has made clear when he took over thatContinue reading “NASA vs. Ted Cruz: Round One”
In the end, Guardian editor puts Earth on front page
At the end of a distinguished career at The Guardian, editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger thinks back over his long tenure. With a few months left to serve one of the finest reporting and writing operations of news on the planet, does he have any regrets? Not many, he says, except that he thinks because of theContinue reading “In the end, Guardian editor puts Earth on front page”
A weekend on the PCT with pinyons and snow: 2015
Having just fallen in love, so to speak, with the pinyon pine, I'm distressed to learn that the species may fall prey to "forest mortality" in the Southwest (as discussed a few weeks back here).
What can be done — if anything? Are these forests doomed, or — ?
With my young nephew Eli Huscher went back to the Walker Pass area of the PCT this past week to explore this question. I'm not a scientist and have no answers as of yet, but I think it's an important question.
I'll begin with a picture of the tree that inspired this new-found devotion. (The pinyon's not the most spectacular of trees — but in the harsh desert landscape of the Mojave, it's a hero.)
Okay, the rest of the pics I'll put below the fold — please enjoy!
Megadrought in SW by 2050: news shocks climatologist
Like many other Americans, I have had difficult absorbing the recently published news that megadroughts are scheduled into the future for the Southwest. Just did not want to hear that, read that, learn the details. But because I intend to go back to the Mojave this weekend, after being foiled last weekend, I forced myself to readContinue reading “Megadrought in SW by 2050: news shocks climatologist”
Low gas prices: a climate-destroying trap?
A scholar, Ruth Greenspan Bell, and Max Rodenbeck, a former Middle East editor for The Economist, argue in an op-ed in today's Los Angeles Times that the drop in oil prices has as much to do with keeping the U.S. addicted to oil, not to mention defeating climate-saving initiatives, as it does with anything else. Continue reading “Low gas prices: a climate-destroying trap?”
Huge blizzard to hit NYC: Homer Simpson bent out of shape
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress points out that scientists believe that the finger of blame has already been pointed at climate change when it comes to the size of storms hitting the mid-Atlantic and New England coastal regions. Romm writes: "Another epic blizzard is bearing down on New England. There is a “big part” played byContinue reading “Huge blizzard to hit NYC: Homer Simpson bent out of shape”
Is a climate disaster inevitable? Adam Frank/NYTimes
Astrobiologist Adam Frank looks at climate change from a deep time perspective, and speculates that perhaps the reason we're having difficulty with adjusting is that it's a really hard problem that few if any civilizations in the history of time have managed to figure out. Frank points out that science now knows that virtually everyContinue reading “Is a climate disaster inevitable? Adam Frank/NYTimes”
Kit Stolz 