It’s Getting Hot In Here

Two of the worst examples of shoddy, irresponsible journalism related to global warming - and journalism in general - that I’ve ever seen have unfortunately come in the past month in the Science section of the New York Times. On February 13, libertarian opinion columnist John Tierney used an article ostensibly about Richard Branson’s $25 million carbon sequestration challenge to launch a myopic attack on Al Gore based on the fact that global warming may unfold over the entire next century. You can’t tell from the internet version, but the content on Branson was on the front page and the attack on Al Gore began, suspiciously, right behind the fold and had nothing to do with Branson’s challenge.

Tomorrow morning the Science section will feature an article by William Broad titled “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype.” The storyline is very simple and familiar: some scientists say Al Gore is exaggerating his claims about global warming, some scientists say he is exaggerating them not so much, actually Al Gore is conveying everything fairly accurately and fully understands the science, but again folks, this reporter found someone who would say he’s exaggerating. Byline March 13, 2007, but it might as well be a reprint from March 13, 1992. The Al Gore-as-Ozone-Man thing… it’s so fifteen years ago. This article was irresponsibly bad for three reasons, outlined below the jump. Why is this relevant to a youth blog? Because the New York Times owes us more than to treat the biggest public policy issue of our century as a gossip-fest.

Continue reading ‘Breaking News: One Time I Heard This One Scientist Guy Say…’

This morning the New York Times and Wall Street journal report that if the largest private equity deal in history is approved by the TXU Corp.’s board today, 8 of 11 coal-fired power plants proposed by the company for Texas will be canceled. A new focus for the company will be on renewables. Texas is the epicenter of the fight over 150+ proposed coal plants nationwide - utilities are trying to get coal plants built and get their emissions “grandfathered in” before we pass legislation to protect the climate and reduce carbon emissions, and students and communities are fighting nationwide to prevent this “coal rush.” This signal from Wall Street to Texas is clear: the era of coal is coming to an end. Continue reading ‘The End of Coal: In Texas 8 Down, 3 To Go’

I hate to bump Josh’s awesome post off the top here but I wanted to tell y’all about the opportunity take part in MySpace’s “MyState of the Union.” Get a bud to film you giving a 1-minute speech you giving your own “state of the union” and submit it.

“How do you feel about the state of America today? Is our country headed in the right direction? What changes would you make in the next year? The President goes on TV every January to tell us what he thinks, but now it’s YOUR turn to tell us what YOU think!”

Such luminaries as former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta and Markos of Daily Kos will be the judges. The winner will be announced the same day as President Bush’s State of the Union, January 23. Submissions are due by January 15. I’m sure the fine, upstanding young readers of this blog can think of some things that would improve the state of our union.

The Canadian Press reports:

A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada’s Arctic, leaving a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. The mass of ice broke clear from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometres south of the North Pole.

Have you ever watched a glacier “calf” icebergs into the sea? About two years ago I stood on a vast glacier coming right off a ring of unnamed peaks in Patagonia. As my group trekked across it we could hear periodic snaps that echoed like gunshots across the expanse. This was ice breaking off the mountain cliffs and creaking in the icefall below us where the glacier emptied into a valley. And this was an ordinary sunny day, and these were just the everyday sounds of a slow-moving (and melting) river of ice.

Continue reading ‘On Ice’

Another day, another study about global warming, this one about how it’ll cost us trillions of dollars not to address climate change. Quite remarkable in itself, the report was commissioned by Friends of the Earth and conducted by researchers at Tufts University. I certainly buy it.

More interesting for me though is the quote from the Chairman of Shell UK in the Reuters story on the report: “For business, tackling climate change is both a necessity and a huge opportunity. We have to step up to the challenge.” Hm, that last phrase - it sounds vaguely familiar. And that part about opportunity, that’s a word you almost never hear from the major environmental groups.

What does it mean when the only ones talking about “opportunity” in the face of a “challenge” in the context of climate change are young people and oil companies? Continue reading ‘Opportunity Knocking’

Whether it’s owned by Google or not, you’ve got to love YouTube for giving you the chance to see things like this: Republican Congressional candidate in Minnesota’s rural, majority-Republican Sixth District Michelle Bachmann says at a public meeting that she doesn’t believe global warming is an established fact… and gets laughed at by the audience. And this is Minnesota, where people are nice! It ain’t just us, folks: the average American understands that global warming is nothing to laugh at… or, uh, you know what I mean.

There are hundreds of campaign events going on this month - see what happens when candidates in your area get asked some tough questions on what they’re doing to stop global warming, and maybe whether they’re Loyal to Big Oil. You know where to send the video.

Beijing - After attending the College Environmental Groups Cooperation Forum in Xi’an, China last week, I traveled back to Beijing to see this historic, enormous city and meet with several of the national student environmental networks in China, including the Green Student Forum (GSF), Green Camp, and the Greenpeace China-sponsored by Solar Generation. The enormous changes that China is undergoing as a result of economic expansion are on display in Beijing - on the outskirts of the city one can find California-style suburban villas as well as makeshift communities of migrant workers from the provinces. Being the capital and because of the upcoming Olympics, the government is working hard to clear the air of local pollution, with mixed success - but the different from Xi’an was clear. While Chairman Mao’s face still watches over Tiananmen Square downtown, organizations like the Green Student Forum are working from spartan offices in bare apartment buildings to ignite the Chinese environmental movement from the bottom up.

Continue reading ‘Letter from Beijing: A Solar Generation’

Xi’an, China - The ancient capital of China and the end of the silk road from Central Asia is serving this week as the site for the first ever national gathering of local and regional student environmental networks in this country - The College Environmental Group Cooperation Forum, sponsored by several Chinese environmental NGO’s. Over the past ten years, the Chinese environmental movement has grown dramatically as the government has recognized the seriousness of environmental problems here and allowed environmental NGO’s to blossom in tacit recognition of how they are crucial to solving these problems. There is still a long way to go, but I think that sudents are now poised to take a leading role at the grassroots level.
Continue reading ‘Letter from Xi’an’

Pat Robertson, the host of the TV show “The 700 Club” and one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the United States, was convinced by the recent summer heat wave that global warming is real.  As quoted on Beliefnet.com, he said: 

“It is getting hotter, and the ice caps are melting, and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air. And I think we really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. If we are contributing to the destruction of this planet, we need to do something about it.”

The shock waves from this statement will reverberate through American politics for a long time.  It may precipitate the coming true of Al Gore’s prediction that George Bush will change his position on global warming before the end of his term in 2009.  Senator Roy Blunt, a conservative Christian, may reconsider his statement, quoted in a post below, that he intends to allow no global warming legislation through the next session of Congress.  But for now, there’s only one thing to say: Amen. 

Remember those big concerts about a year ago called Live8? Remember how Bono, Bob Geldof, and Tony Blair were, with the help of 50 Cent and a reunited Pink Floyd, going to end global poverty at the G8 meetings that year? And how they were also talking about global warming, as if development and climate might actually have something to do with each other? Because the UK was hosting the 2005 G8 summit, Prime Minister Tony Blair was able to push these topics to the top of the agenda. When the G8 meets in St. Petersburg, Russia this July, it will be on Vladimir Putin’s turf, and as the President of the second largest producer of oil in the world, from leaked documents it appears he wants to talk “energy security.” In other words: nuclear energy and fossil fuel, and lots of it. It looks like the rest of the G8 countries, including Blair, are ready to go along with this reversal. Oh well, it’s not like we can expect our political leaders to pay attention to problems like global warming and global poverty every year… Continue reading ‘Putin: Look Into My Eyes… and Forget You Ever Worried About Global Warming’