Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1163

Energy and Global Warming News for July 26th, 2010: Urban air pollutants can damage IQs before birth; Toxic fish could help Obama hit 2020 climate goal

Scientific American:  Study in Krakow, Poland, corroborate NYC findings that links children's lower IQ scores with mothers' exposure to compounds created by burning of fossil fuels

In a sweltering summer in New York City back in 1999, Yolanda Baldwin was eight months pregnant with her first child. She lived near a gas station and across the street from an intersection choked with exhaust-spewing cars and buses. Sometimes the air was so thick with pollution that she could see it, breathe it...

BP to dump Hayward as CEO — only 3 years too late — but with immediate annual pension worth $900,000! - He's off to Siberia ... literally, switching jobs with Bob Dudley who headed Russian operations "before leaving in disgrace"

Tony Hayward, who became the face of BP's flailing efforts to contain the massive Gulf oil spill, will step down as chief executive in October and be offered a job with the company's joint venture in Russia, a person familiar with the matter said Monday.

Looks like BP reads Climate Progress after all (see "Time to fire BP CEO Tony Hayward).

Seriously, though, while Hayward tried to blame his predecessor and pretty much everybody else for this disaster — see Is BP the Goldman Sachs of Big Oil?...

Washington Post headline says it all: "GOP lawmakers optimistic about 'no' votes" - The Audacity of Nope: Republicans embrace Marxism

Groucho Marx, that is:

I was reminded of that song by the Washington Post story, "GOP lawmakers optimistic about 'no' votes":

Republicans say polls suggest that they can oppose all of these initiatives by casting them into a broader critique of Democrats increasing the size of government and the budget deficit, even if their bills are individually popular with the public.

"We're very comfortable where we're at; we have very few members who feel endangered," said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), a...

The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1.5 - Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Tom Toles for thee!

The Pulitzer prize-winner once again shows a cartoon is worth a thousand tweets — plus a bonus Meat Loaf video below:

Don't be sad, as Meat Loaf reminds us, two out of three ain't bad!

Hmmm:

You'll never find your gold on a sandy beach

You'll never drill for oil on a city street.

But you will drill for oil and ruin your sandy beach….

Related Post:

The failed presidency of Barack Obama, Part 1: Rolling Stone: "Instead of taking the fight to big polluters, President Obama has put global warming on...

Hockey Stick fight at the RC Corral - Schmidt to Curry: "In future I will simply assume you are a conduit for untrue statements rather than their originator."

UPDATE:  Judith Curry comments below.  I reply.  Feel free to do the same.

As a general rule for scientists, one shouldn't hitch one's wagon to long-debunked purveyors of disinformation.  Because then you might end up circling the wagons with the wrong … tribe (see "The curious incident of Judith Curry with the fringe").

I'm on a plane today, so I commend to you an outstanding Real Climate post, "The Montford Delusion," by Tamino — and the stunning comments section.  NASA scientist Gavin...

Friedman on climate inaction: We're Gonna Be Sorry

For any first time visitors here because of Tom Friedman's column in the Sunday NY Times, "We're Gonna Be Sorry," you might start with "An Introduction to Climate Progress."

When I first heard on Thursday that Senate Democrats were abandoning the effort to pass an energy/climate bill that would begin to cap greenhouse gases that cause global warming and promote renewable energy that could diminish our addiction to oil, I remembered something that Joe Romm, the climateprogress.org

Must-read Jeremy Grantham: Everything You Need to Know About Global Warming in 5 Minutes - Calls out the disinformers: "Have they no grandchildren?"

Global warming will be the most important investment issue for the foreseeable future.

Uber-hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham, a self-described "die hard contrarian," tells it like it is in his blunt July newsletter (via Barry Ritholtz):

1) The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, after at least several hundred thousand years of remaining within a constant range, started to rise with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.  It has increased by almost 40% and is rising...

Energy and Global Warming News for July 24rd, 2010: World's first molten salt concentrating solar power plant; You can't explain away climate change

'Archimede' demonstration solar plant in Sicily becomes the first to use molten salts to store energy overnight

This month, the Italian utility Enel unveiled "Archimede", the first Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage, and the first to be fully integrated to an existing combined-cycle gas power plant. Archimede is a 5 MW plant located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily), within Europe's largest petrochemical district. The...

The world (futilely) waits for U.S. leadership on climate

"If we look at the Indian scene and look at the actions being taken by state and central governments, it's a little bit difficult to understand why it is so difficult to get strong legislation passed domestically in the United States," said Arabinda Misrah, director of the Climate Change Division at The Energy Resources Institute in India, at a CAP panel discussion on Thursday.

Misrah was joined by climate experts from around the world, who described continuing and ambitious efforts to r...

Dealing with Chinese protectionism of their clean energy market

Chinese protectionism of their clean energy market is a real problem, but one that we can cure with our own domestic investment, writes CAP's Julian L. Wong in this cross-post.

Foreign governments' and businesses' frustration and disgruntlement over China's restrictions on trade and foreign investment is reaching fever pitch. First it was Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric in a speech in Rome earlier this month raising the question of whether China "want[s:] any of us to w...