If presidential State of the Union addresses are a political barometer of sorts, then check this out for historical perspective: Here’s President Clinton in 1998 Our overriding environmental challenge tonight is the worldwide problem of climate change, global warming, the gathering crisis that requires worldwide action. The vast majority of scientists have concluded unequivocally that…Continue Reading…
Well, this is interesting. Just could be a fuzzy math problem, I guess.
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about global warming being a “conflict accelerant” in volatile regions of the world. That discussion, which I’ve explored in articles and various blog posts, (see here and here) is focused on the potential geopolitical ramifications of climate change-related disasters (such as more frequent and severe floods,…Continue Reading…
Joshua Green at The Atlantic does a recap of just how far and fast U.S. climate hopes have fallen in the last two years. Weirdly, reading it reminded me of a recent football game I still can’t shake. (Do fans take this stuff harder than the players?) To appreciate the analogy, you have to understand…Continue Reading…
The overwhelming consensus is that President Obama hit all the right notes in his Tucson speech earlier this week. I know I was moved and inspired by it. On the one hand the President said, “let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not,” but…Continue Reading…
A reader of James Fallows has a suggestion to better focus the national discussion of the moment that is equally relevant to the climate change debate: I would love to see a list of common sense rules (similar to Michael Pollan’s food rules) that serve as good reminders of civil discourse. What would you like…Continue Reading…
Some recent scholarly research on the relevance of storytelling to the climate change debate gets aired out in a USA Today column by Dan Vergano, of which this is the thrust: “Scientists, academics, and politicians on the left, do not do stories very well,” says Harvard political scientist Michael Jones, who earlier this year led…Continue Reading…
David Roberts must not have received the memo that he was supposed to ignore Judith Curry. Seriously, Roberts has made a forceful argument in response to a recent Curry post, in which she wrote: Climate scientists have no particular expertise on politics, economics or social ethics. A scientist’s personal sense of values and morality has…Continue Reading…
This is priceless. The person responsible for researching and writing the SourceWatch page on Judith Curry has an odd way of gathering her information. For example, here are some questions she emailed Curry last night: Hello again Dr. Curry – People who know climate science are having trouble making sense of your critiques, and I…Continue Reading…
Joe Romm has a curious post up today that begins this way: While some confused people think we are headed to a post-partisan era, more reality-based analysts, like centrist political reporter Dana Milbank, know what nonsense that is. Romm’s “post-partisan era” link takes you to a piece he wrote several weeks ago that was critical…Continue Reading…