Category Archives: climate

Obama takes responsibility for Keystone XL: Why?

Maybe Obama isn't as calculating as he sometimes appears.  Or maybe he's fighting for his political life.  This impressive story by a reporter for Huffpo relates how the Keystone pipleline became a trainwreck inside the administration after the State department screwed up the environmental review. Hillary Clinton's State Department has now spent more than threeContinue reading “Obama takes responsibility for Keystone XL: Why?”

We are the new PETM: National Geographic

Their headline is a little less wonky: Hothouse Earth.  No matter — it's still a typically great National Geographic story.  Just how much carbon was injected into the atmosphere during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, as scientists now call the fever period, is uncertain. But they estimate it was roughly the amount that wouldContinue reading “We are the new PETM: National Geographic”

Revkin unbound: Another successful satellite launch

Andrew Revkin, the leading climate reporter of our time, turns out not to have just a phenomenal (and huge) blog, the justly famous Dot Earth on the New York Times, but also a more informal and visual tumblr, Revkin.net, with which yours truly has fallen instantly in love.  From that tumblr, here's a terrific picContinue reading “Revkin unbound: Another successful satellite launch”

Romney flip-flops on climate: Will Limbaugh approve?

Yesterday Mitt Romney changed his views on climate change. In a talk in Pittsburg, he declared: My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us. In June in NewContinue reading “Romney flip-flops on climate: Will Limbaugh approve?”

Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details

Eugene Robinson wraps up the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project results in an op-ed for the Washington Post:  [Richard] Muller found that skeptics are wrong when they claim that a “heat island” effect from urbanization is skewing average temperature readings; monitoring instruments in rural areas show rapid warming, too. He found that skeptics are wrongContinue reading “Climate change skeptic turns on deniers: some details”

Another bad day for climate change denial

Richard Muller, a MacArthur fellow at UC Berkeley, and a contrarian who led a group of scientists — mostly physicists — into the foul waters of climate change denial, funded in large part by the justly-infamous Koch brothers, has been forced to admit by the extensive resampling of data from 40,000 field stations that yes, theContinue reading “Another bad day for climate change denial”

Alfred Hitchock on global warming

Well, not exactly. But in his "Picture of the Week" feature on his chatty blog, Peter Bogdanovich — who directed one of the great pictures of my youth, The Last Picture Show — has some interesting thoughts from Hitch on nature and revenge re: The Birds:  When I asked Hitch what he felt the movieContinue reading “Alfred Hitchock on global warming”

Climate change in Canada: the funny version

Here's an editorial cartoon about global warming, from a young artist… …who notes that countless species are migrating northward to survive.   But Stephanie McMillan is right on another count, too: Climate change is coming to Canada, and could cost as much as $5 billion a year by 2020, and 20-42 billion by 2050, accordingContinue reading “Climate change in Canada: the funny version”

Whales, algae cross melting Arctic for first time in eons

First this year, in June, came the algae:  A single-celled alga that went extinct in the North Atlantic Ocean about 800,000 years ago has returned after drifting from the Pacific through the Arctic thanks to melting polar ice. And while its appearance marks the first trans-Arctic migration in modern times, scientists say it signals somethingContinue reading “Whales, algae cross melting Arctic for first time in eons”