by Michael Tobis

Posted 5 months ago Why has climate change not galvanized us? Why are there "pro" and "con" positions on insuring a livable planet?

The press must accept some of the blame. Read More

Posted 1 year, 7 months ago It's really an absurd travesty when starvation gets blamed on "global warming do-gooders," and we haven't seen the last of that. The problem is miscast, though. There isn't a food shortage, at least not yet. There is a food price crisis, which is a very different beast.

Are its roots in the huge resource gap between the relatively rich and the very poor? If that's true, it has broad implications.

Here's one way of looking at it, from the Omaha World-Herald: Read More

Posted 1 year, 11 months ago The only way to a soft landing is down.

In a brief article on DeSmog by Emily Murgatroyd, a Cato Institute type, Jerry Taylor, is quoted as saying

Scientists are in no position to intelligently guide public policy on climate change. Scientists can lay out scenarios, but it is up to economists to weigh the costs and benefits and many of them say the costs of cutting emissions are higher than the benefits.

Can we consider this claim, or is it somehow protected by a taboo? Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that… Read More

Posted 2 years ago A couple of weeks ago, I attended a seminar hosted by several departments at the University of Texas on the topic of "peak oil." The occasion was the visit of David Sundalow of the Brookings Institution, who is hawking his new book Freedom from Oil. This was mutually convenient for him and the university, which is trying to carve out a position as an optimistic, rolled-up-sleeves, can-do problem-solver in the fields of energy and water.

I have no objection to that approach and am pleased to be somewhat distantly associated with it. That said, I did not leave… Read More

Posted 2 years, 4 months ago Pretty much everyone in attendance at two Austin Live Earth house parties was a boomer. Is grassroots activism still unhip among young people?

I was a bit nervous about attending a Live Earth event. At 52, I thought I'd be at least twice the age of most of the people I'd encounter. I needn't have worried.

I attended two Live Earth house parties in Austin, Texas, and saw nobody under 30 except the kids of one of the hosts. I… Read More

Posted 2 years, 5 months ago

The bad news is that we are in quite a pickle.

The good news about the bad news is that the national science academies of the G8 countries, along with those of Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, China, and India, have issued a unanimous and remarkably strong statement (PDF) about our global energy quandary.

The bad news about the good news about the bad news is that the press is almost totally silent about it, at least in English-speaking countries. Read More

Posted 2 years, 7 months ago Is climate change the most important global problem we face?

This seems on its face a good question. Economists like Bjorn Lomborg take this reductionist recipe, spice it with an unshakable confidence in future growth, and conclude that climate should be low on our list of priorities.

Lomborg's arguments follow from his assumptions. If his conclusions are wrong as they appear, perhaps the logic is wrong, or the data, or the underlying premises. All of these are good places for skeptical inquiry, and may be fruitful, but there is yet another place to look. I suggest that Lomborg asks… Read More