Climate Crisis
The Trump Era Will Only Worsen the Climate Crisis By Focusing on Symptoms Over Causes
There's no way of knowing for certain whether Hurricanes Irma and Harvey would've been as destructive had it not been for the climate crisis, as Al Gore calls it. At the very least, however, these and other similarly monstrous weather events are surely a preview of what we can ...read more
Fox News Channel's Jesse Watters Thinks the Climate Crisis Isn't Real Because Spring in New York Has Been 'Freezing'
If Fox News Channel's prepubescent street troll Jesse Watters announced the death of his own child, he'd probably do it with that stupid grin plastered across his face. As we've witnessed too often, Watters can't stop grinning like Private Pyle, even while discussing topics that ...read more
That Melting Antarctic Glacier Isn't Nearly Enough to Snap Us Out of Our Climate Apathy
This will likely be the least-viewed article I write all week, but it's difficult to over-emphasize the importance of the topic. This week, scientists from United States, Britain, France and Australia released the results of a study published in Nature Geoscience showing that ...read more
Meet the New Science-Denying Chairman of the Senate Environment Committee
George Carlin once said, "If you have selfish, ignorant citizens you're gonna have selfish, ignorant leaders." His theory is easily vindicated by a look at the too-successful career of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). With the ascendency of a GOP majority in the U.S. Senate, Inhofe is ...read more
CNBC "Expert" Says Carbon Dioxide is Just Like "the Poor Jews under Hitler"
I had no idea that Jews and CO2 had anything in common, so thanks to Princeton University Professor William Happer who, on CNBC today, cleared it up for me. Responding to a question from Andrew Ross Sorkin, Happer reiterated a 2009 comment that the greenhouse gas CO2 is just ...read more
We're Too Lazy to Stop Climate Change, So This is What's Going to Happen
It's difficult to resist the instinct to feel utterly hopeless and cynical about the climate crisis. We're in it now, and a frustrating lack of political will mixed with public apathy or denial has completely stymied what should've otherwise happened years ago: an effort of the ...read more
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The Polar Vortex Is Not Funny
Warning: this will be very crotchety. I'm not going to name names or embarrass anyone in particular for doing this, but I've just about had it with the tittering about the polar vortex. Sorry to burst the comedy bubble, but this isn't anything like "Sharknado" and it's not a ...read more
Newt Gingrich Shrugs Off Global Warming, Says 'Life Was Fine' During Dinosaur Age
You really can't make this stuff up. Here's one of the GOP's wise old men and self-described "amateur paleontologist" (underscore "amateur") discussing the Earth's climate during the age of the dinosaurs. “The age of the dinosaurs was dramatically warmer than this is right now ...read more
Super Stupid: Fox News Channel Host Says Ice in Antarctica Proves 'Global Cooling'
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the scientific prowess of Fox News and Fox Business Channel host Stuart Varney: "All 52 passengers aboard the research vessel stranded in the Antarctic ice have been rescued. The ship, sent to the Antarctic to study climate change has been ...read more
Climate-Denying Libertarianism
By Robert Parry An inconvenient truth for “libertarians” is that their ideology of a minimalist U.S. government grew out of the South’s institution of human bondage, i.e. the contractual right of a white person to own a black person, and from the desire of slaveholders to keep ...read more
As Need for New Flood Maps Rises, Congress and Obama Cut Funding
By Theodoric Meyer, ProPublica As the United States grows warmer and extreme weather more common, the federal government's flood insurance maps are becoming increasingly important. The maps, drawn by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, dictate the monthly premiums ...read more
How Many More Disasters Before We Take This Crisis Seriously?
UPDATE:Via Brad Blog, Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research defined specifically how the climate crisis magnified the Oklahoma tornado: The main climate change connection is via the basic instability of the low level air that creates the convection ...read more
Almost Flunking on Global Warming
By Paul R. Pillar The Council on Foreign Relations has just released a “Global Governance Report Card” (prepared chiefly by Stewart Patrick) that assesses how the international community has been doing over the past five years in addressing six major global challenges: climate ...read more
2012 Was the Hottest Year on Record
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From The Huffington Post: Even more astonishing is the imbalance between all-time records. According to data from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, there were 356 all-time high temperature records set or tied in 2012, compared to four ...read more
Strategic Threat of Climate Change
A tornado forming over Oklahoma. (Photo credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) By Winslow Myers: Because the United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet, Americans have the luxury of being proactive in ensuring their future security. But the ...read more
Eat Less Meat
Today I'm going to teach you how you can get a free Prius, and you barely have to do anything to get it. Until recently, I owned a Prius and I can tell you that's it's easily the finest car I've ever driven. As traveling goes, there's nothing quite as satisfying as driving 500 ...read more
The Climate Cliff
By Bob Cesca: Credit where credit is due, Matt Yglesias coined the phrase "climate cliff" via Twitter the other day in reference to the now inevitable 2°C global temperature increase. I liked it so much I thought I'd borrow it for a while. Why a cliff? On the other side of ...read more
Climate Crisis Study: Temperature Increase Likely to Reach Dangerous Levels
The Daily Banter Headline Grab. From Huff Post: WASHINGTON -- The amount of heat-trapping pollution the world spewed rose again last year by 3 percent. So scientists say it's now unlikely that global warming can be limited to a couple of degrees, which is an international ...read more
George Will: Obama is Winning Because Whites Don't Want to Fire a Black Guy
By Bob Cesca: For the first time in a year or two, I read a George Will column yesterday. Whenever the topic of "very serious" conservatives comes up in conversation, the same three names are always tossed around: David Brooks, David Frum and, naturally, George Will. In spite ...read more