Richard Seager plays his traditional role of scaring the crap out of Westerners: What is permanent drought? It’s pretty much just like it sounds. When I ask (with serious journalistic intonation, I might add) how long a permanent drought would last, he answers simply: “It would just become the new climate.” Duh. (h/t Laura Paskus) …
The Washington Post published Chris Mooney’s reply to George Will’s recent climate columns. I’ll cherrypick my favorite bit, but encourage you to read the whole thing: Consider a few of Will’s claims from his Feb. 15 column, “Dark Green Doomsayers”: In a long paragraph quoting press sources from the 1970s, Will suggested that widespread scientific …
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From today’s newspaper, a look at decision-making in the face of uncertainty on the Colorado River: Trying to follow the science of climate change and the Colorado River, it would be easy to throw up your hands. Very smart scientists (Hoerling among them) have come up with very different answers about how climate change might …
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From today’s business section (adwalled): “There is no bigger risk that can impact you long term in our business than climate change,” Sterba, chief executive officer of PNM, told the Journal in an interview.
Tom Yulsman ventures back into the political dangerous terrain left by another Al Gore exaggeration on climate change: In an interview with the Guardian yesterday, the Nobel prize winner said business leaders are realizing that action is required on climate change because they are “seeing the writing on every wall they look at. They’re seeing …
Climate scientists, apparently, are a dour, grumpy bunch, while economists have the cheerful demeanor of a plucky role model heading enthusiastically into the future.* This, at least, is the impression left by Jean-Marie Macabrey’s account** of last week’s Cophenhagen climate fest: At the congress, it seemed that all the scientists had to share with their …
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Over on the work blog, I pronounce New Mexico’s Western Climate Initiative legislation not quite dead but almost.
Theme, title and all subsequent material stolen from William Connolley, who notes that George Will has helped launched our BAMS paper on the 1970s global cooling myth to the top of the charts. More interesting, however, is William’s analysis of what draws readers to the strange and wonky world of American Meteorological Society journals: Conclusion: …
The most important equation in climate change.
One of the common themes in drought journalism (mine at times included, sadly) is the tendency to cry “drought” at minor excursions into the down side of natural variability, when the real problem is not so much water supply as voracious consumption. Blaming nature is a whole lot easier than blaming ourselves. Is that the …