Living in a marginal (but stunning) landscape with obvious constraints has its drawbacks when too many people move there and the natural resources become depleted. In the American Southwest, those drawbacks are not really being felt by the hordes who live there now. Yet. But based on my own knowledge of the drought history of…Continue Reading…
In his rise to power as a Republican congressman, Newt Gingrich developed a reputation as a rhetorical “bombthrower.” And that was before Bill Clinton stepped foot in the White House. By the mid-2000s, the former Speaker of the House (he left Congress in 1999), seemed to grow mellower, and even recast himself as a treehugger. …Continue Reading…
With great pithy I tried to caution people not to get so bubbly over the supposed wiki/peak oil revelations. I suppose if I can’t get my three year old to listen to me, why should anyone else? Fortunately, there is somebody much more learned and well-placed than me on the case. Maybe he’ll have better…Continue Reading…
Turn it up. Are you listening!
A few days ago, House Republicans held their first hearing on climate science. Actually, as John Broder reported in the NYT, the ostensible purpose of the hearing was to review the economic impact of pending limits on carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. But much of the discussion focused instead on whether climate science supports…Continue Reading…
I’ve been growling all week at the stream of stories and blog posts dissecting the business angle to the AOL acquisition of the Huffington Post. As if that were all that mattered about this news. But one post by Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor and new media maven, got me barking mad. Now I generally…Continue Reading…
Can anyone give me the ten-second elevator speech about this latest climate controversy–the one involving Eric Steig and Ryan O’Donnell? That would be the speech going up. Then on the way down, can anyone give me another primer on why this dust-up matters? I’m serious. When even this guy calls it an “incredibly complicated story”…Continue Reading…
I see that Michael Tobis held another unusual climate therapy session with the inscrutable Chauncey Gardiner of the climate blogosphere. Michael also posted a few farewell music videos. Given that his blog often had a despairing theme, I thought he forgot to include this one.
It’s amazing to me that someone can lay out the complexity of the climate problem so well and then follow that with a simplistic, facile call to action. Here’s the set-up by David Roberts at Grist in a post that otherwise compares the differing vantage points of climate scientists and economists: Humanity has never had…Continue Reading…
Roger Pielke Jr. notes Paul Krugman’s recent learning curve on Egypt. As I pointed out, it helps if you have the right tutor.