Finally a media outlet crunches the numbers on the two competing methods to reduce carbon emissions: a tax on carbon emissions, or a cap-and-trade proposals to compel action from business. I prefer the former because (if it included give-backs to the poor, who would suffer the most) a carbon tax would do the best jobContinue reading “Carbon Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade: WSJ Gets Specific”
Category Archives: climate
Global Warming: Controversy becomes Common Sense
According to an informal poll taken by the Ojai Valley News, our recent heatwave is probably related to global warming. Scientists would be quick to point out that we cannot see climate patterns, which we measure in thirty-year spans, in weather, which will pass in days. But climatologists will concede that our heat waves areContinue reading “Global Warming: Controversy becomes Common Sense”
Image of the Week: Northwest Passage Opens
For the first time in at least half a century, and likely far longer, a clear channel has opened through the Arctic ice, now visible even from space. From Eli Rabbet’s blog, with lots of amusing comments. (Update: a new report from NOAA based on twenty climate models and CO2 already in the atmosphere seesContinue reading “Image of the Week: Northwest Passage Opens”
Seeing China Clearly — Through the Smog
Orville Schell has been writing about China for decades, and is probably the ideal person to answer questions about China and global warming, being both a China scholar and a good reporter. His answers to questions from readers of the New York Times are long, so I’m going to post most of them below the fold, but excerpt the crucial point, in his first answer:
Instead of seeking out a common remedy whereby the US might lead the
world in searching for and then formulating some plan to pool resources
and allow China to continue to develop, albeit in a “clean” manner
while still limiting both conventional pollutants and carbon emissions,
the US has used China’s obduracy to opt out of any solution altogether,
including the Kyoto Protocols.
The result is that while the US hides behind China, China hides
behind the US. We find ourselves in a world where the two largest
polluters are sitting the game out, even as our common globe becomes
increasingly warmed, with all the attendant consequences.
European Heat Waves: Now Twice as Long!
That’s according to a study from the University of Bern. The surprising news is that this study looks at temperature records and concludes that temperatures were overestimated in the past in Europe. This will not please deniers in this country eager to argue that due to the so-called heat island effect, high temperatures are beingContinue reading “European Heat Waves: Now Twice as Long!”
Treasury Secretary Lobbies China on Global Warming
From the Wall Street Journal today: Mr. Paulson has tried to broaden the discussion beyond the currency, talking about further openness in the financial sector as a key step for China’s reforms and cooperation on mitigating climate change, preserving the environment, and developing more secure energy supplies. Ahead of his meetings in Beijing Tuesday andContinue reading “Treasury Secretary Lobbies China on Global Warming”
Floods Show Global Warming, Says Conservative British Paper
Echoing the liberal Prime Minister, the conservative British broadsheet the Daily Telegraph runs a long story arguing that "the worst floods to hit England in 200 years" show that global warming has arrived. Here’s the heart of the piece, by environmental editor Charles Clover: I have covered the subject of climate change, in what IContinue reading “Floods Show Global Warming, Says Conservative British Paper”
Jet Stream Shift Over Europe: Climate Change…or Not?
Below is a nice map, courtesy of the BBC, showing the shift in the jet stream bringing unprecedented rain and flooding to the UK. As Kim Murphy put it for the Los Angeles Times today: Few scientists are ready to immediately blame the quirky weather on global warming. For one thing, current climate change trendsContinue reading “Jet Stream Shift Over Europe: Climate Change…or Not?”
Texas Floods Predicted by Scientists
In Texas, according to two reports compiled by the Union for Concerned Scientists, global warming will mean "more frequent intense rainfall events are expected, with longer dry periods in between." The EPA agrees: "the amount of precipitation on extreme wet days in summer is likely to increase." Ho hum. Scientists get it right again: FloodsContinue reading “Texas Floods Predicted by Scientists”
Meet the New Weather, Not the Same as the Old Weather
The Ecologist, out of the UK, publishes a good wrap-up of weather around the world, focusing on Australia’s experience as a troubling paradigm for the rest of the planet: Until late April, Australia lay in the grip of the worst drought in its history. River after river dried up, and in the absence of winterContinue reading “Meet the New Weather, Not the Same as the Old Weather”
Kit Stolz 