Comments Kit Stolz has made

The most interesting song I've heard from the record had nothing to do with the environment, but everything to do with the difficulty of making what used to be called "message music."

It's called "Just Singing a Song," and it is built on the chorus: 

"Just singing a song/Won't change the world..."

And it rocks, btw...which maybe why it was the only one from the record that Young played when he last performed live, at his great annual fall Bridge Benefit concert.

a tortured hero -- literally

At one point in "Slumdog," the interrogator of our likable hero refers to the "bizarrely plausible" nature of his story. Lim and some of us question that. So we're grumpy -- I guess.  

The premise (spoiler alert!) of this film tells us that because this kid from the slums gets on a winning streak, he is abducted, interrogated, tortured, and beaten.

Really? Or is this just a melodramatic framing device that allows us to take an on-the-run tour of the lower depths of Mumbai? I confess I liked the tour, but set this same story in any well-known Western city and the dubiousness of it would be instantly apparent. We only buy it because we want to go on the tour and we figure that somehow in weird India anything goes. The best thing you can say about it is that it's like a Dickens novel for our time, but even Dickens I don't think would resort to cheesy bad guys  actually torturing a hero on such a flimsy pretext.

The most important movie of the year, for reasons both artistic and commercial, was "The Dark Knight." And if that movie could have contained an uplifting love story or an obvious moral, probably it too would have been granted a shot at best picture. Surely it's as solid and memorable a movie as "Titanic," which according to the Academy, is one of the best ever, or "Slumdog," which is a virtual lock to win this year.

So then -- isn't it curious that the most popular picture of the year is too harrowing and downbeat to be considered for a big award? Says a lot about our times. On A song from the likely Best Picture and an open thread for the Oscars posted 9 months, 1 week ago 7 Responses

carbon vs. carbon dioxide

The distinction between carbon and carbon dioxide is worth discussion. Reading the IPCC introduction Jon cites, I notice it puts this number in gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent [GtCO2-eq], which probably is the best way to handle the question, although a bit laborious to explain. It's also interesting that the report frankly admits its own lack of certainty regarding the amount of methane released annually. On Semiletov tells AGU that, if released, 1 percent of ESAS methane could cause runaway warming posted 11 months, 1 week ago 9 Responses

excellent follow-up

Too bad Ms. Jackson couldn't follow up with a question about the time frame in the debate, but at least she had a chance to follow up in print. On Ingrid Jackson's question about climate change put candidates on the spot posted 1 year, 1 month ago 8 Responses

Sarah Palin and Big Oil

I like the idea of someone asking Palin about science, though I would ask a simpler question: How old is the earth, do you think?

On the same subject, today Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has an unusually good op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that includes a hugely damning quote from Palin (for rationalists, at least):

"When oil profits are at stake, her fantasy world appears to have no boundaries. About American's deadly oil dependence, she mused recently, "I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can't drill our way out of our problem."

I guess the only difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney is ... lipstick."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kennedy24-2008s ...On Why he picked Sarah Palin, carbon queen posted 1 year, 2 months ago 7 Responses

Right, the Wash (not Wales)

Spaceshaper is correct: it's corrected above. On Disappearing owls, threatened forests, and the city-country conflict posted 1 year, 2 months ago 6 Responses

Rasmussen on this subject

Martinez is a Republican politician, but he might be right in his assessment of Florida voters, if the latest Rasmussen poll is any guide.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/e ...

However, if you drill down (sorry) into the approval numbers a little, you'll see that the approval reflects a perception that drilling will have an appreciable effect on prices. This isn't true, and oil companies now aren't hurrying to drill the leases they already have. (From their perspective, what's the rush?) In the same way that the gas tax holiday at first sounded like a good idea, but proved to be basically oilco fluff, the "drill now" campaign could be dissipated with the facts...if those opposed to such drilling are able to get them in front of the public. On How greens and Democrats can win the energy debate posted 1 year, 5 months ago 19 Responses

blaming: big media or right-wing media?

I don't think it's fair to blame the mainstream media for the fact that most Americans don't understand global warming very well. If that were the case, wouldn't the misunderstanding be equally distributed across party lines?

But it's true we've got a long ways to go. Bill Maher had a bit about this poll that I liked (and he reported it accurately).

"I saw a poll that explained a lot. Like why global warming and the environment isn't a big issue in the campaign. 47% of Democrats said that global warming should be a top priority. Which is pathetic. 12% of Republicans said that global warming should be a top priority. So we have two parties, the lame, and the super-lame..."On Fewer Republicans saying earth is warming posted 1 year, 6 months ago 19 Responses

between a regulatory train wreck and a hard place

We've been hearing noises that Bush wants to change course on global warming (and not go down in history as a Crichton-esque denier) but if as Perino stated the White House can't get behind Warner-Lieberman, where will they go? I don't see their next step on reducing emissions.

What is interesting is the reference to a "regulatory train wreck." Fossil fuel companies hate the idea of states getting into regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court has ruled that the EPA has the right to regulate carbon emissions, and the White House did confirm their willingness to abide by that ruling (gosh, thanks, Mr. President) so it's conceivable they're putting together a plan to make it legislatively clear that the Federal government, not the states, should be in charge of greenhouse gas regulation.

If they could spin that as a step forward, the White House might be able to please fossil fuel companies, progressive businesspeople, and Republicans eager to update the GOP brand. On Bush to push for climate legislation? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 6 Responses

politics vs. history

Thanks for the thoughtful response, Bart. Re: socialism, I was making a distinction between the role of socialism in American politics vs. the role in American history. It's absolutely true that socialism has played an important role in our history, not the least example being Social Security, which is the most successful and popular program in the history of the government, probably. But still socialism is viewed politically in this country with great suspicion, such as the recent hubbub over "socialized medicine." On Is There Will Be Blood a dramatization of peak oil? posted 1 year, 9 months ago 4 Responses

bad meat and Republicans

Eric Schlosser, of "Fast Food Nation," commented on this story this evening in a radio interview show based in L.A.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/373go6

He said:

"I think the Clinton administration was making a sincere effort to try and impose some tough rules on the meat-packing industry, and it was the right wing of the Republican party in Congress that was blocking these proposals, again and again. Once President Bush took office, the meat-packing industry was essentially empowered. And it's very difficult to tell the difference between USDA policy and the policy of the American meat-packing industry. It's tragic, because this should be a non-partisan issue. All Republicans and Democrats have to eat, but the right wing of the Republican industry has very close ties to the meat-packing industry and has prevented any kind of meaningful reform."On Despite biggest meat recall ever, 37 million pounds of suspect meat made it to schools. posted 1 year, 9 months ago 13 Responses

that's easy

Everybody knows exactly what the GOP candidates will say, with the possible exception of McCain. So from the reporters' point-of-view, it's a waste of a precious opportunity to ask a question.

But thinking beyond the short-term, the gov. is absolutely right. And reporters could ask a less-obvious global warming question, and possibly provoke a real answer. (For example -- on coal, the real costs of "clean coal," etc.)

But they don't.

This year the candidates (at least on the Democratic side) seem to be leaving the press corp in the dust.

Maybe we need a new press corps. On Schwarzenegger: posted 1 year, 10 months ago 5 Responses

solitude vs. nature

A.O. Scott in the "New York Times" has an essay that helped clarify some of this for me: here's the key part:

"And this is the puzzle of Chris's character. He spurns lasting connections with other people, even as the temporary attachments he forms -- to Jan and to characters played by Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook -- take on an unusual intensity. The purpose of Mr. Krakauer's book was, in part, to explore this aspect of Mr. McCandless's personality and to refute the notion that he was selfish, crazy or simply a fool. Mr. Penn, with the poetic license that filmmaking offers, fleshes out the book's understanding of the character. Chris is impulsive and sometimes overly earnest, yes, but he is also funny, thoughtful and kind.

And his quest for meaning in a state of solitude -- a fundamentally romantic undertaking with a literary pedigree that can be traced back to Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and William Wordsworth -- is at once noble and tragic. Not only because it ends in his death, but also because he never quite learns to reconcile the two sides of his temperament, the loner with the brother, son and friend."

In other words, this is about solitude -- not nature. I'm not sure Muir (or McCandless) would agree. But given their romanticism, and given the ending, Scott has a point worth remembering.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/movies/awardsseason/06s ...On Revisiting Into the Wild posted 1 year, 10 months ago 16 Responses

the book vs. the movie

Thanks caniscandida for that insight into the book, which I too now want to read. (Guess I should pay more attention to bestsellers: I always seem to miss the good ones.) And it's nice to hear a word from my old neighborhood near Columbia U. I remember 114th St very well, though I don't suppose I could afford it now.

Interesting to hear of the distinction between Krakauer and McCandless regarding the wild...I am definitely a Muirian in that respect. I'm a little surprised that a mountain-climber such as Krakauer should be agnostic on the subject...but still intrigued to hear of his thoughts. On Revisiting Into the Wild posted 1 year, 10 months ago 16 Responses

an Obama landslide

Look at the numbers:

Obama took 38% of 239,000 votes cast on the Democratic side:   91,000

Huckabee took 34% of 120,000 votes cast on the Republican side, for about 40,000 votes.

Were this the national, this would be a virtually unprecedented landslide for Obama. And (as George Stephanopoulous said last night) a complete repudiation of the Bush/Cheney administration.

Even if you add together the votes from the top three GOP candidates, Obama all by himself would still win by about 5%.

This is the real news from Iowa.

Obama often hints in his stump speech of a desire to win big. He's been attacked by lefty bloggers lately for bringing right-wing framing into some discussions (such as Social Security). But clearly, his blend of charisma and strategy is working -- and to truly remake the politics in this country, isn't he right? Don't we need a landslide? A progressive Democratic landslide?  

Get ready, folks. I hear a rumbling now...On The candidacy is Obama's to lose posted 1 year, 10 months ago 32 Responses

tipping points vs. points of no return

Despite my respect for the talented Mr. McKibben, his piece seems to me to confuse the point that Hansen made at the AGU. In response to comments from within the scientific community, Hansen reframed the concept of tipping points to make clear that when we as a species pushed the levels of atmospheric CO2 past 300-350 ppm (depending on the category; ice sheets, shifting of climactic zones, etc.) we committed the planet to long-term changes. He then went on to make clear that we are approaching points of no return, in which those changes become irreversible and (most likely) ruinous, as climactic feedbacks accelerate, and overwhelm our attempts to stabilize the biosphere.

Why McKibben obscured this point I do not understand. Hansen's distinction seems very useful, and plenty easy to follow, both scientifically and in English. I blogged about it here on Grist earlier, but for another longer version take a look at a piece from a National Geographic reporter at the same press conference, who makes the same point with some extra quotes.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071214-ti ...On What is the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 24 Responses

this really is a great book

"The Road" is indeed a great book. A couple of points worth mentioning:

According to George Monbriot, the Guardian's chief climate correspondent, this is a book about what happens after the collapse of the biosphere. (The atmosphere still can be breathed, but the skies are so fouled that plants can't grow.) How he reached that conclusion I don't recall, but it makes sense.

McCarthy spends his days at the Santa Fe Institute, founded by a friend of the novelist, a physicist. According to Wikipedia, McCarthy says he prefers the company of scientists to writer types.

Ursula K. LeGuin, the famous science fiction novelist, has complained about "The Road," saying it more or less follows the plot of every post-apocalyptic science fiction novel ever written. Technically speaking, there is some truth to this charge, but no science fiction novel I have ever read has the power of this book, so my advice is, forget her criticism, and read the book -- if you're strong of heart. On A short review of Cormac McCarthy's recent book posted 1 year, 11 months ago 7 Responses

yes, but...

...the Post-Intelligencer story does include that caveat.

More importantly, few of us live globally. We experience the climate where we live, inevitably, and if we cannot describe climate change except in terms of the whole planet, than that means we if we're not scientists we can't talk about climate change. It's as if we can't have a view on the war in Iraq because we haven't fought in Iraq.

War is too important to be left to the generals, and climate change is too important to be left to the scientists, as much as we need their counsel.

For example, where I live in Southern California, we experienced record rainfall and devastating floods that caused vast damage and killed quite a few people early in the winter of 2005. I talked to climatologist Kelly Redmond (also quoted in the story above) and asked him if these floods could be attributed to climate change and he said essentially yes...with the usual "not inconsistent with" caveat.

 http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/9/154714/4417

Did this make it into the public record? Not really. The LATimes did do a big feature about the heavy rains, and discussed the possibility of a link to climate change, but because once in previous history (in 1889, if memory serves) Los Angeles had had more rainfall, it was essentially dismissed as a fluke. (Subsequently, by the way, oceanographer Bill Patzert found out that that past record was probably wrong...but of course, by then it was too late to talk about SoCal rainfall, records, and climate change.)

Climate change matters to all of us, not just scientists -- that's why we have to talk about it in the context of our own lives, not just in terms of the planet.  On Northwest flooding gives some clues posted 1 year, 11 months ago 5 Responses

how to get past the culture wars

"Mr. Rice, James Inhofe has seemingly convinced a lot of people from your state that global warming has something to do with religion, politics, and other culture war topics, and nothing to do with the atmosphere or the burning of fossil fuels.  

Do you have ideas on how to open the minds of Oklahomans who have been misled by Inhofe on these and other environmental topics? When you talk to voters in your state, have you found ways to overcome cultural stereotypes around environmentalism? Or do you agree with critics who think that environmentalists tend to be their own worst enemies?"On What should I ask Andrew Rice? posted 1 year, 11 months ago 5 Responses

more on Hobo's Disease and Thoreau

Fascinating comments. Never heard of Hobo's Disease, but what's interesting is not only the diagnosis but the hint that it may be something that can possibly be overcome or outgrown -- if I'm understanding that correctly.

Although I suspected Chris McCandless might have been of that type before I saw the movie, after seeing it I wasn't so sure. It's impossible to know, of course, how the true facts may have been altered, but the character in the movie did not seem schizophrenic to me, even mildly.

And caniscandida's link to Thoreau is very apt indeed. Thoreau's famous statement that: "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." could almost have been a description of McCandless in Alaska. On Revisiting Into the Wild posted 2 years ago 16 Responses

yes, but...

I agree. Maybe I'm dense, but I'm still not sure exactly what framing is.

Mooney and Nisbet say it's not spin, or theatre. Though examples elude my memory, I think they suggest that the precision of framing, like the precision of science, leads ineluctably to the correct result.  

At the Congressional hearings on global warming this spring, Chris Mooney praised the testimony of Kevin Trenberth particularly, among the four senior scientists who testified.

Though Trenberth was not the only effective witness, I think most of us would agree that he spoke as well as anyone about the risks of climate change, including desertification.

Interestingly, at this hearing Trenberth also spoke of the planet as "running a fever."

Has anyone ever found a better metaphor for heating we have brought to the planet?

Does not this metaphor quietly but firmly, like a doctor, demand immediately action?

Yes and yes, as far as I can tell.

I recall Gore using the same idea in "An Inconvenient Truth" -- who knows where the concept originated. But it's a good one.

Here's my point: If indeed "a fever" is good framing for our scientific understanding of global warming, even from the perspective of a advocate of theory,  that Trenberth may have excelled yet again, in framing as well as science, before Congress and the nation, and yet still be unable to so much as twitch the needle of the public debate.

Framing may be a good thing, it may be necessary in fact, and it may be all we can fairly ask of our scientists, but it's not sufficient.

Framing might be helpful to some within the scientific community, but it's not a solution to the larger problem for the rest of us.

For the vast majority, indeed in some respects including those in the scientific community, framing is not an answer.

But that insufficiency is also why I'm not crazy about the poll.

Yes, the facts of global warming are winning out in the public mind, as they inevitably will, as the heating-up of the planet becomes ever more obvious.

But what if the facts convince us, but we still fail to avoid a terrible self-inflicted wound?

How many more such "wins" can we stand?

The doctor observing a child's fever takes no pleasure in being right; he wants to bring it down.

Now. Immediately. Which is what we're not doing.    On Delayers are replacing deniers posted 2 years, 1 month ago 9 Responses

Al's point

Or, as Al Gore said:

"I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers, and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."

I've wondered about this myself. Obviously, some young people are concerned about global warming, but most seem no more concerned about it than people in older generations, even though they're sure to suffer more. Why is that? Shifting baselines? A lack of imagination? Or -- ?  On The coal industry's rush to build new plants is bumping up against reality posted 2 years, 2 months ago 5 Responses

Clinton's answer

A related question was asked to the best Democratic political analyst of our era, Bill Clinton, by Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/index.jsp?fr_story=56d0a6bc58 ...

To wit:

Andrew Revkin:    Is climate change the perfect political problem? It's difficult to communicate, and to legislate, takes place over a long-term time scale, with outcomes that will always have some uncertainty....how do you deal with that?

Bill Clinton:     The real challenge is to make this a voting issue. We now have a big majority of people who think that climate change is real, and we have a big majority of people who favor some action on it. This is a voting issue in Europe. Can it be made a voting issue here in America?  

I think the answer is yes, because we already know enough to know that climate changes are already underway and they can't be good. And we already know enough to know that there things we can do that will generate economic opportunity and reduce social inequality and that can't be bad.On Why is green so low on the political agenda? posted 2 years, 3 months ago 30 Responses

Who is this think tank?

Can you tell us more about this think tank? I'm not familiar with them at all. On Climate change mitigation costs less than doing nothing about the problem posted 2 years, 3 months ago 2 Responses

You forgot "Kicking Television"

The NYTimes called it the band's best when it was released. I don't know about that, but it was a heck of a live record -- one of the few in recent years that really sizzled with the electricity of a great show. On From the Wilco demographic posted 2 years, 4 months ago 6 Responses

WSJ on droughts and downpours

The Wall Street Journal had an excellent story on this a week or two ago I meant to post. Here's the gist (the rest may not still be available, but here's the link, just in case: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118277470277046973.html?m ...).

     In the Lake Tahoe area straddling the California-Nevada border, a blaze believed caused by human activity Sunday afternoon quickly spread through tinder-dry pine forests a few miles south of the lake, destroying more than 200 homes and other structures. Winds that fanned the fire subsided yesterday, but some 1,000 homes are still threatened. The fire threat in the heavily developed area is unusually severe because drought left the Sierra Nevada snow pack at 29% of normal this spring.

    Meanwhile, spring in four states -- Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee -- was the driest in 113 years of record-keeping. In Florida and Georgia, the situation has been deemed an emergency by state and federal officials.

    The West is experiencing its sixth-driest spring on record, while recent government reports show the drought might be creeping into the Midwest, where farmers hoping to profit from the ethanol boom have planted more acres of corn than at any time since the end of World War II.

    Already, economic losses are mounting. In Georgia, peach crops are smaller than normal, peanuts were unable to germinate in the bone-dry soil, and wildfires have devoured valuable timber. The water level in Florida's Lake Okeechobee, the second-largest freshwater lake in the continental U.S., hit an all-time low on June 1, forcing lawn-and-garden enthusiasts, golf courses and farmers to conserve water.

    In Alabama, lack of hay is causing cattle farmers to liquidate entire herds. Drought has been a persistent problem for much of the U.S. in recent years. This year, some areas are parched while others are being hit by heavy rains and flooding. Some parts of Texas have been declared states of emergency because of flash flooding.

    Indeed, early in the spring, many farmers in the Corn Belt worried that too much rain was going to prevent them from planting their corn on time. The drastic weather can be explained partly by a summer-weather pattern called the Bermuda High that is sucking moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it on places like Texas and the High Plains.

    The problem for drought-affected areas in the Southeast is that the Bermuda High has pushed too far to the west. So the typical widespread afternoon thunderstorms and rain haven't fallen there, meaning little drought relief.

    Many scientists worry global warming may be playing a role, too. The kind of severe droughts punctuated by torrential rain now hitting many parts of North America have long been predicted as consequences of rising world temperatures.On Global warming cancels 4th of July celebrations posted 2 years, 4 months ago 28 Responses

More Wilco Please!

'nuf said.

http://wilcoworld.net/news/index.phpOn I'm baaaack ... posted 2 years, 5 months ago 4 Responses

this is good news

I though MoveOn was strictly about politics. Guess not! On Sign the petition! posted 2 years, 5 months ago 5 Responses

thanks...

...for the recommendation. That books sounds like a must-read for me. On Nuclear power is too risky posted 2 years, 6 months ago 12 Responses

Godwin's Law

If I invoke Godwin's Law, will Lindzen back down in embarrassment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

Probably not. He seems to be shameless. But Bill Gray did seem to realize he'd gone too far when he compared Al Gore to Adolf Hitler. Or so I assume, because I haven't heard much from him lately.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006 ...On Crazy quotes from everyone's favorite skeptic posted 2 years, 7 months ago 12 Responses

plum's questions

You're absolutely right about the distinction between climate and weather. In plain English, a climatology is thirty years worth of weather in a given region. (For example, if you take a look at the paper on perpetual drought in the Southwest by Martin Hoerling linked above, you'll see graphs that discuss drought in blocks of thirty years for that region.) Lindzen obviously knows that, so it's very cynical of him to repeatedly claim that because we can't predict precipitation more than a few days into the future, that we cannot project higher temps forced by the greenhouse gas effect.

Lindzen does concede (with other doubters) that temperatures are rising, but claims that it may be due to some other mechanism than global warming.

I think Lindsen jumped the shark when he claimed a couple of months ago on TV that people alarmed by global warming were like "little children." But that's not as spectacular as his fellow doubter William Gray of Colorado State University, who last June compared Al Gore to Adolf Hitler. On For shame! posted 2 years, 7 months ago 23 Responses

a note on Cizik and the NAE

What a great discussion! I'm still thinking about "the death of conservatism" idea.

One note: according to Dreher's provocative blog, the National Association of Evangelicals considers Rev. Richard Cizik an important asset, and has no plans to follow Dobson's suggestion to "fire or silence" him.

http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/2007/03/cizik-c ...On Some call for action posted 2 years, 8 months ago 17 Responses

"the largest leveraged buyout ever"

I can't wait to hear more. I'm sure not all the details will be good news, but the trend is obvious. Surely TXU will not be the last big polluter to make a deal with environmental groups and investment bankers to restore its reputation as a good (corporate) citizen. (Remember, the current Treasury Secretary spent millions when he ran Goldman Sachs on deals to value the planet and reduce emissions.) Yes, the environment does matter, even in Texas. This is huge news. On This is huge posted 2 years, 9 months ago 21 Responses

Hansen Seconds

James Hansen has made the same argument regarding  coal (we must not build vast numbers of coal plants, he said in 2005) and coal gasification (we must not convert vast deposits of tar sands to gas, which would emit vast amounts of addictional carbon burning, he pointed out this week).

Personally, I like this framing of the issue. On A new path forward for climate change campaigners posted 2 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

knee-jerk denialism pays, apparently

If Morano is popular, it's because some simply don't want to face the facts, and couldn't possibly be convinced, and need some talking points to spout.

If you check Morano's site, you'll see he admits in a bland way that "the President is refering to global warming." He doesn't concede that anthropogenic global warming is a reality. He doesn't even accept that the  Republican establishment has in 2007 taken on "the serious challenge of global climate change." (Not because they intend to do anything about it as long as Bush is around, but simply because they don't want to look like total hypocrites when, as in California, they decide to move seriously later.)

Amazing that he can make a living this way.  On Run out of a Senate committee, no less posted 2 years, 10 months ago 5 Responses

Re: Bailey's mea culpa

Bailey deserves credit for admitting he was dead wrong when he scoffed at global warming. But note that the moderate, science-based rhetoric of his mea culpa in no way matches the wrongful delight he took in slamming those warning of the risks.

According to the titles of Bailey's books, people who warned of the risks of global warming were "false prophets." Global warming (or global heating, as James Lovelock calls it) was "a myth." To speak of more powerful hurricanes, rising sea levels, or climate chaos, was "alarmism."

Now that Bailey has admitted that we face serious risks due to a changing climate, will he discuss in his columns how we can reduce those risks? Or will he continue to support the nihilist  do-nothing policies of ExxonMobil? He got the past wrong; now that he's admitted it, will he make amends? That's the next test for a responsible man in his position.  On Good on him posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

any truth to this rumor?

A friend I respect told me that soy products in fact aren't healthy at all...he says they can prevent the body from absorbing the nutrients  and minerals it needs. Any truth to this rumor? On Finally, teh soy and teh gay, united posted 2 years, 11 months ago 10 Responses

logic and myth

The Rosa Parks story is a wonderful example of the fascinating and mysterious nature of social movments. Not only was she an activist, but she was not the first black person who refused to move to the back of the bus when asked. But for whatever reason--the person, the moment, the way the story was told--the previous instances caused barely a ripple, but Rosa Parks' example changed everything (in time).

Not so long ago, people used to call this the 100th monkey effect, and think this process of social change was shown in a scientific study. The irony is that the "effect" turns out to be a story itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_Monkey

But our evident need for the story shows that although we need the science to understand what is happening and guide our choices, we need the story--the myth--to inspire us. On What kind of rhetoric creates social change? posted 2 years, 12 months ago 29 Responses

splitting the difference

Following the reporter David Savage, I think the Supremes will rule that the EPA has the right to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, but not the requirement.

Of course you're right that CO2 is not a pollutant in the same sense that soot is a pollutant, but given that it and other greenhouse gases are literally changing the climate, to argue that the EPA has the right to enforce the Clean Air Act to preserve, if at all possible, our lovely climate seems nothing less than sane to me.

On the second topic, I agree, it's painful to see what is happening to American newspapers today. From my perspective, the big three (the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall St. Journal) are thriving, and everyone else is suffering tremendously, thanks in large part to the Internet that I love.

My daughter in high school has some interest in being a journalist, but I can't really encourage her, knowing how impossible it is to make a decent living at it myself. In this crazy world, it makes more sense if you're interested in journalism to become a teacher and teach kids who are also interested in journalism, and maybe write a story or two when possible, then to actually try to make it your life.

But enough whining from me. On The line-up of legal issues posted 3 years ago 6 Responses

between-ness and storytelling

Caniscandida rightly notes that Tony Hoagland is not thrilled about the poetic trend away from the narrative and towards a kind of allusive fragmentation. And as someone who has always liked the classic Aristotelian style of storytelling, I should say that I too have doubts about the new fragmentation. (You can see both its strengths and weaknesses in the new "Babel," where I would argue that the Tokyo story, which has relatively little to do with the rest of the movie, is actually the strongest segment, because it expresses in short but classic form the story, complete with climax and anti-climax.) But the point is not what I or anyone else thinks about this shift, but simply to note that yes, it does seem to be happening to our story telling, in various forms, and isn't it interesting and ironic that even as we seem to be doing our level best to stress out the planet with our industrial might, we as humans seem to be returning to a pre-industrial mindset regarding time itself? On Is Western time on the outs? posted 3 years ago 20 Responses

Yes!

Maybe it's simply a matter of the facts overwhelming the deniers, but even in hard right regions such as Alaska, climate change issues now are looked at frankly. As recently as 2003, the Alaskan papers I saw didn't--or couldn't--mention climate change even in the midst of an almost unprecedented winter warming. Now they talk to scientists and put the latest studies on the front page at times. I don't know if they're looking at the ethics of it, though.  On Press coverage of climate change is ... changing posted 3 years ago 4 Responses

not to mention...

The suggestion of the tourism minister in Australia: shade cloth.On Cliff's Notes on saving corals and mangroves posted 3 years ago 1 Response

C02e

Funny!

One technical note: Could you talk about the concept of C02e (mentioned in the second quote) a little? I have read about it in the context of cap-and-trade programs, but I'm not sure I understand how today's CO2 ppm concentrations translate into CO2equivalent. On The Stern report on climate change posted 3 years ago 6 Responses

the courtesy trap

In settings such as these, the courtesy of far-right flamethrowers making outrageous statements is, in my experience, a argumentative trap. They know that the outrageousness of their statements (global warming is good!) may provoke outraged responses and incivility or rudeness. In fact, that's what they're hoping for, so they can look like victims.

I hope that no one gave him that opportunity on this panel. The facts are overwhelmingly clear; there's no need to froth at the mouth. On Liveblogging it, only two days later posted 3 years ago 7 Responses

Anti-Enviro Claims Poverty

According to his on-line financial disclosure statement from (http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.asp?CID=N00007...) took in almost $3.5 million dollars this year, mostly from business interests.

Amazing how a man considered one of the most corrupt members of Congress (http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/newsrelease.php?vi...) took in millions, yet paid himself nothing.

What are the odds? On McNerney is giving Pombo a run for his money posted 3 years, 1 month ago 2 Responses

We have a winner!

A newspaper editor kindly instructed me on how to place these marks within words used on the web.  

Go to a program such as MS WORD. Go to "Keyboard Shortcuts for International Characters."

Follow the instructions. For example, to put a tilde over a letter, go CTRL + SHFT + TILDE, then type the letter. Then copy + paste it from WORD to HTML.

It works!

I'm embarrassed I didn't know this. On Plain speaking from an expert posted 3 years, 1 month ago 15 Responses

Inhofe admits he's losing

In an interview with the newspaper Tulsa World on July 22 of this year (no longer available on-line) Inhofe conceded that "the other side" is winning the debate. "The other side" includes the likes of Scientific American, who declared this month that "the debate on global warming is over" (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000EABE4-BDFF-...).
Let's see: the Senator from Big Oil, or Scientific American? Who is more trustworthy? Let me think...On Like peanut butter and chocolate posted 3 years, 2 months ago 12 Responses

Is the SUV becoming uncool?

I haven't seen the latest stats, but in Southern California, I do see signs that SUVs are not as popular as they used to be. Lots more sitting by the road with For Sale signs on their windshields. Lots fewer of those ridiculous four-wheel drives jacked up to preposterous heights. Lots more hybrids, small cars, motorcycles. On And why is it still around? posted 3 years, 2 months ago 10 Responses

The New Forecast

Including Tom Toles:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?name=Toles&date= 09012006On California's emissions caps will spur the nation to follow. posted 3 years, 2 months ago 3 Responses

bringing it down to earth...or the river

Not being much of a philosopher, I want to frame this question in practical terms. Here's an example from today's LATimes:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-river24jul24,1,4156350.story

It's an excellent story, so please read it, but in a nutshell, some homeless folks have taken residence in small islands of shrubbery in the middle of the LA River (yes, there is such a thing).

Some enviro groups, eager to restore the river to something resembling a natural state, want them out.

Seems to me, that if people are part of the environment, that homeless people may have as much right to that river bottom as those who want to save the river. But of course, are they playing by the same rules? Or are they just exploiting a landscape that the rest of us aren't legally allowed to touch?

As someone who has served in a "Stream Team" testing water in the Ventura River, and seen the campsites of the homeless in the Ventura River bottom, I can see both sides of this debate. I don't know what to do about it. But I am very curious if others in this discussion would agree that this is a good example of the "are humans part of the environment" question.   On Some quasi-philosophical blather posted 3 years, 4 months ago 17 Responses

WTO regulation: a bargaining chip?

Thanks for the insight, Aaron. Since as you say Stiglitz doesn't seem to have a hard cap on emissions, is Stiglitz's suggestion then maybe more rhetorical than practical--a bargaining chip that other nations could use to win concessions from the US? On A "simple remedy" for global warming posted 3 years, 4 months ago 7 Responses

the "debate"

Has anyone thought to ask Bush what evidence he has that the global warming of the last twenty-five years is "natural?"

Just wondering. On Bush's new line on global warming posted 3 years, 4 months ago 6 Responses

that durn frog

I love the haiku, but frog story looks to be an urban legend.

http://www.uga.edu/srel/ecoview11-18-02.htmOn Haiku and so forth posted 3 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses

redefining environmentalism

Andrew Sullivan seems to take the same tack as the guy you amusingly call "The Mustache," which is that somehow a big part of the problem--why people aren't fired up about saving the planet--is the nature of "traditional environmentalism." (Which I translate to mean the Sierra Club and a handful of other advocacy groups.)

Well, the Sierra Club has been around a long time, and has its flaws, no doubt, but though perhaps it could be more successful, I don't see that it's doing anything terribly wrong.

I suspect that a lot of us simply resent being asked to change our lives. Here's an example. When some low-emitting hybrid cars were given access to the express lane down here in SoCal, even without a passenger, there were a lot of complaints in letters to the paper about "smugness," which in fact turned out to mean a) the hybrid drivers were using the express lanes, all by themselves; and,  b) they weren't going as fast as they possibly could, because they were trying to save gas.

To me that smacks of hypersensitivity. It's always upsetting when somebody or something new comes along that challenges our way of life; it's only natural to resist that challenge.

These hybrid drivers were only taking advantage of a privilege they had been given. (Whether it's a good idea or not is another question, but I don't see how you can criticize them for doing what is legal and encouraged.) And in my experience, people drive Prius's pretty much the way they drive any other small Japanese car; some fast, some slow, etc.

I'm happy the Mustache is talking about climate change, energy conservation, and related issues. But pointing the finger vaguely in the direction of the Sierra Club and saying it's somehow their  fault Americans aren't paying more attention?

I don't think so. On Link dump posted 3 years, 5 months ago 6 Responses

Why Can't Alaskans Be A Little More American?

Because they moved up there to distinguish themselves from what the continental types; or, in their lingo, "the Lower 48."

Sad but true. They also angrily doubt the usefulness of urban planning, which is why the Anchorage city dump is located next to a residential neighborhood. On Let's all buy a bicycle and break our leg posted 3 years, 6 months ago 2 Responses

The Onion's take

The Onion recently ran a painfully funny piece that confirmed Frameworks' point about how it seems pointless to try and solve a big problem like global warming with small actions, like changing light bulbs:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48223

The headline tells the story: I'm Doing My Inconsequential Part for the EnvironmentOn Framing climate change posted 3 years, 6 months ago 20 Responses

Gore's BTU tax

What Bryankwalton said, with this note. That tax amounted to about 4.3 cents on the gallon, which at that time cost about $1.30 a gallon.

I vividly remember Rush Limbaugh, among others, deriding the tax as pointless, unnecessary and inflationary.

Can you imagine how much better off this country would have been with eight years of bigtime research into alternative fuels?

Let's give Gore some credit for a good idea, and the reactionary right (among others, including auto unions) blame for killing it.

Second, I happened to see Nobel Prize-winner Wangari Maathai a couple of weeks ago, and she spoke very highly of Gore for reasons not well known. She said that in the l980's, when a Senator, he took a great interest in her work planting trees in Africa, and subsequently pulled strings behind the scenes to keep her and other members of her group out of prison, when they encountered a corrupt and repressive government.

I've been critical of Gore as a politician, for all the familiar reasons, but I think Gore the law-maker and environmentalist deserves more credit than he's been given to date.  On Gore and environmentalists posted 3 years, 6 months ago 14 Responses

20th year anniversaries we'd rather forget

Great post. Thanks...though it wasn't easy to read.

I had to try several times, from several directions, to get through all these disasters from around the world.

What's shocking to me is how they harmed us, homo sapiens, as much or more than "the environment."

Chernobyl is returning to wilderness. Aberfan has made a garden out of the disaster; Sesovo a park. On A look at some of the year's other toxic anniversaries posted 3 years, 7 months ago 3 Responses

going local

Small food producers selling local are having a lot of success, as near as I can tell, but you'd never know it, because as atreyger says, they don't have gazillions of dollars to pat themselves on the back on television.

That doesn't mean the buy local movement isn't working, it just isn't working on a vast national scale.

"Small is beautiful"...but it's harder to see. On My problem with David Kamp's NYT review of Michael Pollan's new book posted 3 years, 7 months ago 21 Responses

history of global warming

Is it "geeking out" to be interested in how global warming was discovered? I suppose so, but for those who just can't help but wonder, Spencer Weart has a wonderful site on the topic at:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htmlOn A climate-change compendium posted 3 years, 7 months ago 2 Responses

climate change/fire insurance metaphor

I take your point, and agree that it's a sneaky, insiduous argument on the part of the do-nothings...but I'm not sure that Revkin is a do-nothing.

I read the fire insurance metaphor as a way to say we need to do something, in case our house catches fire. Not that all that fire insurance would be outrageously expensive; or bankrupt us. (That's not often the case, after all. Fire insurance is far more likely to save us than ruin us.) Revkin does allude in the interview to taking action now. On Taking on the latest argument from climate do-nothings posted 3 years, 7 months ago 5 Responses

Time story on global warming

I don't think you have to be a subscriber to read it on-line; anyhow, somehow I managed it for free, and it's a terrific piece, the first in a mainstream journal that links extreme winds to global warming without requiring a specific scientific study on exactly that event to make the connection.

Anyhow: here's the piece. Enjoy the breakthrough!
(Kit Stolz)

Global Warming Heats Up

The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis will hit so soon--and what we can do about it

By JEFFREY KLUGER

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth.
Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

It certainly looked that way last week as the atmospheric bomb that was Cyclone Larry--a Category 5 storm with wind bursts that reached 180 m.p.h.--exploded through northeastern Australia. It certainly looked that way last year as curtains of fire and dust turned the skies of Indonesia orange, thanks to drought-fueled blazes sweeping the island nation. It certainly looks that way as sections of ice the size of small states calve from the disintegrating Arctic and Antarctic. And it certainly looks that way as the sodden wreckage of New Orleans continues to molder, while the waters of the Atlantic gather themselves for a new hurricane season just two months away. Disasters have always been with us and surely always will be. But when they hit this hard and come this fast--when the emergency becomes commonplace--something has gone grievously wrong. That something is global warming.

The image of Earth as organism--famously dubbed Gaia by environmentalist James Lovelock--has probably been overworked, but that's not to say the planet can't behave like a living thing, and these days, it's a living thing fighting a fever. From heat waves to storms to floods to fires to massive glacial melts, the global climate seems to be crashing around us. Scientists have been calling this shot for decades. This is precisely what they have been warning would happen if we continued pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping the heat that flows in from the sun and raising global temperatures.

Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. If there was any consolation, it was that the glacial pace of nature would give us decades or even centuries to sort out the problem.

But glaciers, it turns out, can move with surprising speed, and so can nature. What few people reckoned on was that global climate systems are booby-trapped with tipping points and feedback loops, thresholds past which the slow creep of environmental decay gives way to sudden and self-perpetuating collapse. Pump enough CO2 into the sky, and that last part per million of greenhouse gas behaves like the 212th degree Fahrenheit that turns a pot of hot water into a plume of billowing steam. Melt enough Greenland ice, and you reach the point at which you're not simply dripping meltwater into the sea but dumping whole glaciers. By one recent measure, several Greenland ice sheets have doubled their rate of slide, and just last week the journal Science published a study suggesting that by the end of the century, the world could be locked in to an eventual rise in sea levels of as much as 20 ft. Nature, it seems, has finally got a bellyful of us.

"Things are happening a lot faster than anyone predicted," says Bill Chameides, chief scientist for the advocacy group Environmental Defense and a former professor of atmospheric chemistry. "The last 12 months have been alarming." Adds Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts: "The ripple through the scientific community is palpable."

And it's not just scientists who are taking notice. Even as nature crosses its tipping points, the public seems to have reached its own. For years, popular skepticism about climatological science stood in the way of addressing the problem, but the naysayers--many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies--have become an increasingly marginalized breed. In a new Time/ ABC News/ Stanford University poll, 85% of respondents agree that global warming probably is happening. Moreover, most respondents say they want some action taken. Of those polled, 87% believe the government should either encourage or require lowering of power-plant emissions, and 85% think something should be done to get cars to use less gasoline. Even Evangelical Christians, once one of the most reliable columns in the conservative base, are demanding action, most notably in February, when 86 Christian leaders formed the Evangelical Climate Initiative, demanding that Congress regulate greenhouse gases.

A collection of new global-warming books is hitting the shelves in response to that awakening interest, followed closely by TV and theatrical documentaries. The most notable of them is An Inconvenient Truth, due out in May, a profile of former Vice President Al Gore and his climate-change work, which is generating a lot of prerelease buzz over an unlikely topic and an equally unlikely star. For all its lack of Hollywood flash, the film compensates by conveying both the hard science of global warming and Gore's particular passion.

Such public stirrings are at last getting the attention of politicians and business leaders, who may not always respond to science but have a keen nose for where votes and profits lie. State and local lawmakers have started taking action to curb emissions, and major corporations are doing the same. Wal-Mart has begun installing wind turbines on its stores to generate electricity and is talking about putting solar reflectors over its parking lots. HSBC, the world's second largest bank, has pledged to neutralize its carbon output by investing in wind farms and other green projects. Even President Bush, hardly a favorite of greens, now acknowledges climate change and boasts of the steps he is taking to fight it. Most of those steps, however, involve research and voluntary emissions controls, not exactly the laws with teeth scientists are calling for.

Is it too late to reverse the changes global warming has wrought? That's still not clear. Reducing our emissions output year to year is hard enough. Getting it low enough so that the atmosphere can heal is a multigenerational commitment. "Ecosystems are usually able to maintain themselves," says Terry Chapin, a biologist and professor of ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. "But eventually they get pushed to the limit of tolerance."

CO2 AND THE POLES

As a tiny component of our atmosphere, carbon dioxide helped warm Earth to comfort levels we are all used to. But too much of it does an awful lot of damage. The gas represents just a few hundred parts per million (p.p.m.) in the overall air blanket, but they're powerful parts because they allow sunlight to stream in but prevent much of the heat from radiating back out. During the last ice age, the atmosphere's CO2 concentration was just 180 p.p.m., putting Earth into a deep freeze. After the glaciers retreated but before the dawn of the modern era, the total had risen to a comfortable 280 p.p.m. In just the past century and a half, we have pushed the level to 381 p.p.m., and we're feeling the effects. Of the 20 hottest years on record, 19 occurred in the 1980s or later. According to nasa scientists, 2005 was one of the hottest years in more than a century. It's at the North and South poles that those steambath conditions are felt particularly acutely, with glaciers and ice caps crumbling to slush. Once the thaw begins, a number of mechanisms kick in to keep it going.

Greenland is a vivid example. Late last year, glaciologist Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and Pannir Kanagaratnam, a research assistant professor at the University of Kansas, analyzed data from Canadian and European satellites and found that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996. A cubic mile of water is about five times the amount Los Angeles uses in a year.

Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's, is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising (because warm water expands), and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland ice sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft., swallowing up large parts of coastal Florida and most of Bangladesh. The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft.

FEEDBACK LOOPS

One of the reasons the loss of the planet's ice cover is accelerating is that as the poles' bright white surface shrinks, it changes the relationship of Earth and the sun. Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains, the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it. That is what scientists call a feedback loop, and it's a nasty one, since once you uncap the Arctic Ocean, you unleash another beast: the comparatively warm layer of water about 600 ft. deep that circulates in and out of the Atlantic. "Remove the ice," says Woods Hole's Curry, "and the water starts talking to the atmosphere, releasing its heat. This is not a good thing."

A similar feedback loop is melting permafrost, usually defined as land that has been continuously frozen for two years or more. There's a lot of earthly real estate that qualifies, and much of it has been frozen much longer than two years--since the end of the last ice age, or at least 8,000 years ago. Sealed inside that cryonic time capsule are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO2. That, in turn, could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (ncar) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7 gigatons a year.

One result of all that is warmer oceans, and a result of warmer oceans can be, paradoxically, colder continents within a hotter globe. Ocean currents running between warm and cold regions serve as natural thermoregulators, distributing heat from the equator toward the poles. The Gulf Stream, carrying warmth up from the tropics, is what keeps Europe's climate relatively mild. Whenever Europe is cut off from the Gulf Stream, temperatures plummet. At the end of the last ice age, the warm current was temporarily blocked, and temperatures in Europe fell as much as 10(degree)F, locking the continent in glaciers. What usually keeps the Gulf Stream running is that warm water is lighter than cold water, so it floats on the surface. As it reaches Europe and releases its heat, the current grows denser and sinks, flowing back to the south and crossing under the northbound Gulf Stream until it reaches the tropics and starts to warm again. The cycle works splendidly, provided the water remains salty enough. But if it becomes diluted by freshwater, the salt concentration drops, and the water gets lighter, idling on top and stalling the current.

Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle. In a global-warming world, it's unlikely that any amount of cooling that resulted from this would be sufficient to support glaciers, but it could make things awfully uncomfortable.

"The big worry is that the whole climate of Europe will change," says Adrian Luckman, senior lecturer in geography at the University of Wales, Swansea. "We in the U.K. are on the same latitude as Alaska. The reason we can live here is the Gulf Stream."

DROUGHT

As fast as global warming is transforming the oceans and the ice caps, it's having an even more immediate effect on land. People, animals and plants living in dry, mountainous regions like the western U.S. make it through summer thanks to snowpack that collects on peaks all winter and slowly melts off in warm months. Lately the early arrival of spring and the unusually blistering summers have caused the snowpack to melt too early, so that by the time it's needed, it's largely gone. Climatologist Philip Mote of the University of Washington has compared decades of snowpack levels in Washington, Oregon and California and found that they are a fraction of what they were in the 1940s, and some snowpacks have vanished entirely.

Global warming is tipping other regions of the world into drought in different ways. Higher temperatures bake moisture out of soil faster, causing dry regions that live at the margins to cross the line into full-blown crisis. Meanwhile, El Nino events--the warm pooling of Pacific waters that periodically drives worldwide climate patterns and has been occurring more frequently in global-warming years--further inhibit precipitation in dry areas of Africa and East Asia. According to a recent study by ncar, the percentage of Earth's surface suffering drought has more than doubled since the 1970s.

FLORA AND FAUNA

Hot, dry land can be murder on flora and fauna, and both are taking a bad hit. Wildfires in such regions as Indonesia, the western U.S. and even inland Alaska have been increasing as timberlands and forest floors grow more parched. The blazes create a feedback loop of their own, pouring more carbon into the atmosphere and reducing the number of trees, which inhale CO2 and release oxygen. Those forests that don't succumb to fire die in other, slower ways. Connie Millar, a paleoecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, studies the history of vegetation in the Sierra Nevada. Over the past 100 years, she has found, the forests have shifted their tree lines as much as 100 ft. upslope, trying to escape the heat and drought of the lowlands. Such slow-motion evacuation may seem like a sensible strategy, but when you're on a mountain, you can go only so far before you run out of room. "Sometimes we say the trees are going to heaven because they're walking off the mountaintops," Millar says.

Across North America, warming-related changes are mowing down other flora too. Manzanita bushes in the West are dying back; some prickly pear cacti have lost their signature green and are instead a sickly pink; pine beetles in western Canada and the U.S. are chewing their way through tens of millions of acres of forest, thanks to warmer winters. The beetles may even breach the once insurmountable Rocky Mountain divide, opening up a path into the rich timbering lands of the American Southeast.

With habitats crashing, animals that live there are succumbing too. Environmental groups can tick off scores of species that have been determined to be at risk as a result of global warming. Last year, researchers in Costa Rica announced that two-thirds of 110 species of colorful harlequin frogs have vanished in the past 30 years, with the severity of each season's die-off following in lockstep with the severity of that year's warming. In Alaska, salmon populations are at risk as melting permafrost pours mud into rivers, burying the gravel the fish need for spawning. Small animals such as bushy-tailed wood rats, alpine chipmunks and pinon mice are being chased upslope by rising temperatures, following the path of the fleeing trees. And with sea ice vanishing, polar bears--prodigious swimmers but not inexhaustible ones--are starting to turn up drowned. "There will be no polar ice by 2060," says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. "Somewhere along that path, the polar bear drops out."

WHAT ABOUT US?

It is fitting, perhaps, that as the species causing all the problems, we're suffering the destruction of our habitat too, and we have experienced that loss in terrible ways. Ocean waters have warmed by a full degree Fahrenheit since 1970, and warmer water is like rocket fuel for typhoons and hurricanes. Two studies last year found that in the past 35 years the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has doubled while the wind speed and duration of all hurricanes has jumped 50%. Since atmospheric heat is not choosy about the water it warms, tropical storms could start turning up in some decidedly nontropical places."There's a school of thought that sea surface temperatures are warming up toward Canada," says Greg Holland, senior scientist for ncar in Boulder. "If so, you're likely to get tropical cyclones there, but we honestly don't know."

So much environmental collapse happening in so many places at once has at last awakened much of the world, particularly the 141 nations that have ratified the Kyoto treaty to reduce emissions--an imperfect accord, to be sure, but an accord all the same. The U.S., however, which is home to less than 5% of Earth's population but produces 25% of CO2 emissions, remains intransigent. Many environmentalists declared the Bush Administration hopeless from the start, and while that may have been premature, it's undeniable that the White House's environmental record--from the abandonment of Kyoto to the President's broken campaign pledge to control carbon output to the relaxation of emission standards--has been dismal. George W. Bush's recent rhetorical nods to America's oil addiction and his praise of such alternative fuel sources as switchgrass have yet to be followed by real initiatives.

The anger surrounding all that exploded recently when NASA researcher Jim Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a longtime leader in climate-change research, complained that he had been harassed by White House appointees as he tried to sound the global-warming alarm. "The way democracy is supposed to work, the presumption is that the public is well informed," he told Time. "They're trying to deny the science."

Up against such resistance, many environmental groups have resolved simply to wait out this Administration and hope for something better in 2009. The Republican-dominated Congress has not been much more encouraging. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have twice been unable to get through the Senate even mild measures to limit carbon. Senators Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman, both of New Mexico and both ranking members of the chamber's Energy Committee, have made global warming a high-profile matter. A white paper issued in February will be the subject of an investigatory Senate conference next week. A House delegation recently traveled to Antarctica, Australia and New Zealand to visit researchers studying climate change. "Of the 10 of us, only three were believers," says Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. "Every one of the others said this opened their eyes."Boehlert himself has long fought the environmental fight, but if the best that can be said for most lawmakers is that they are finally recognizing the global-warming problem, there's reason to wonder whether they will have the courage to reverse it.

Increasingly, state and local governments are filling the void. The mayors of more than 200 cities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, pledging, among other things, that they will meet the Kyoto goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in their cities to 1990 levels by 2012. Nine eastern states have established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for the purpose of developing a cap-and-trade program that would set ceilings on industrial emissions and allow companies that overperform to sell pollution credits to those that underperform--the same smart, incentive-based strategy that got sulfur dioxide under control and reduced acid rain. And California passed the nation's toughest automobile- emissions law last summer.

"There are a whole series of things that demonstrate that people want to act and want their government to act," says Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. Krupp and others believe that we should probably accept that it's too late to prevent CO2 concentrations from climbing to 450 p.p.m. (or 70 p.p.m. higher than where they are now). From there, however, we should be able to stabilize them and start to dial them back down. That goal should be attainable.

Curbing global warming may be an order of magnitude harder than, say, eradicating smallpox or putting a man on the moon. But is it moral not to try? We did not so much march toward the environmental precipice as drunkenly reel there, snapping at the scientific scolds who told us we had a problem. The scolds, however, knew what they were talking about. In a solar system crowded with sister worlds that either emerged stillborn like Mercury and Venus or died in infancy like Mars, we're finally coming to appreciate the knife-blade margins within which life can thrive. For more than a century we've been monkeying with those margins. It's long past time we set them right.

--With reporting by David Bjerklie and Andrea Dorfman/ New York, Dan Cray/ Los Angeles, Greg Fulton/ Atlanta, Andrea Gerlin/ London, Rita Healy/ Denver and Eric Roston/ Washington
On TIME cover story on global warming posted 3 years, 8 months ago 15 Responses

Making a Distinction

Amen. I just wish we could talk about this without so many acronyms. It's like trying to debate politics and play Scrabble at the same time. On 'Eco-terrorism': A non-retraction posted 3 years, 8 months ago 4 Responses

Barack Speaks on Energy

Thanks for posting this. I like it because it starts where the President left off, sharply focuses the issue around a tangible enemy--a killer, no less--and then goes on to provide hope for the future. Is it enough? Hell no. What speech could be enough? But it should help get the conversation about new energy started, especially in places (such as Detroit) where alternative fuels are considered weird and impractical. It'll be interesting to see how the auto industry reacts to the "Health Care for Hybrids" proposal. On That man's got a pair, you gotta give him that posted 3 years, 9 months ago 16 Responses

Bush and Crichton

Call it scandal fatigue. Innovative new method of government; populace gets so tired of your past screw-ups, they can't deal with the prospect of new ones. On Bush and Crichton again posted 3 years, 9 months ago 2 Responses