Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1165

The Atlantic's Clive Crook needs to retract his libelous misinformation and apologize to Michael Mann

The Atlantic's Clive Crook has written one of the most embarrassing and willfully uninformed pieces published by the status quo media, "Climategate and the Big Green Lie."  Coming after multiple exonerations of climatologist Michael Mann, it is libelous.  Amazingly, Mann tells me that Crook never interviewed him or contacted him at all before writing this piece.

How exactly does the senior editor for a major magazine trash the reputation of a man whose academic practices and scientific...

Cool roofs save money, save energy, cut pollution and directly reduce warming!

What wildly underfunded climate solution can achieve all of these goals simultaneously:

Slow global warming by increasing the reflectivity of the Earth (geo-engineering)
Reduce local temperatures in the hottest cities (adaptation)
Reduce fossil CO2 emissions (mitigation)
Save U.S. consumers and businesses billions of dollars in energy costs
Reduce urban smog and hence cardio-pulmonary disease
Create more than 100,000 jobs in two years?

The answer is a major effort to make roofs (and...

Energy and Global Warming News for July 21: Google strikes wind-power deal; Energy ministers endorse clean-tech measures; Overcome by heat and inertia

Google Strikes Wind-Power Deal

Google Inc. struck a 20-year deal to buy clean energy from a NextEra Energy Inc. wind farm, a move that places the Internet search giant in the wholesale energy market.

The Mountain View, Calif., company said it will buy 114 megawatts of wind generation at a fixed price each year from a NextEra facility in Story County, Iowa. The company will sell the power back to the energy grid via the regional spot market.

The move will help Google partially protect itself...

Planning for our oceans' future - Obama signs executive order creating new national ocean policy

The Obama administration released the final recommendations of an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Monday, and the president immediately turned around and signed it into an executive order.  Laura Cantral of the Meridian Institute and CAP's Andrew Light have the story in this cross-post.

The recommendations call for the establishment of a new national policy to protect and restore our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. Ocean conservation and industry groups have long identified a...

One-third of US counties face increased risk of climate-induced water shortage and drought

By mid-century climate change will mean a high or extreme risk of water shortages in 14 states, according to a new study commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One-third of U.S. counties will face at least some higher risks of water shortages, with 400 counties at extremely high risk, the report by consulting firm Tetra Tech concludes.  CAP's Tom Kenworthy has the story.

The report is based on current water use rates extrapolated for expected growth in demand, and water supply p...

How hot is it? Masters reports nine countries have smashed all-time temperature records, "making 2010 the year with the most national extreme heat records." - It's so hot the Washington Post almost gets the story right!

A heat wave of unprecedented intensity has brought the world's largest country its hottest temperature in history:

Globally, NOAA just reported that June is the fourth month in a row of record global temperatures, and the first half of 2010 is on a record pace.  This is all the more powerful evidence of human-caused warming "because it occurs when the recent minimum of solar irradiance is having its maximum cooling effect," as a recent must-read NASA paper notes.

If the planet as a...

Kerry Emanuel calls Climategate "the latest in a series of coordinated, politically motivated attacks that represent an aggravated assault on scholarship" - Slams Lindzen, Singer and Happer as liars

MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel has been at the forefront of trying to explain many aspects of climate science to the public, especially in his field of expertise — hurricanes.  He has written a good essay on the hacked emails, " 'Climategate': A Different Perspective," originally published at the National Association of Scholars [NAS:] website.  Near the end, he notes:

While the climategate email authors are castigated for not being paragons of virtue, the sins of others go...

Energy and Global Warming News for July 20: China may spend $738 billion on clean energy projects; World's top energy officials search for clean-tech cash; Climate change grasped better as health issue — study

China May Spend $738 Billion on Clean Energy Projects

China, the world's biggest polluter, may spend about 5 trillion yuan ($738 billion) in the next decade developing cleaner sources of energy to reduce emissions from burning oil and coal, a government official said.

The government will submit plans to develop cleaner energy, including nuclear power and gas from unconventional sources, in 2011 to 2020 to the State Council, or Cabinet, for approval, Jiang Bing, head of the National...

Update on BP oil disaster and the Gulf's Murky Future

Three months after BP's Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, the Gulf of Mexico faces a murky future of imperfect solutions to intractable problems.   Think Progress has an update, cross-posted below:

The new cap installed on the gushing wellhead has for the first time stopped the flow of oil into the ocean, though there remains serious concerns about the wellbore's integrity. If the cap holds, the region will still have to deal with the millions of gallons of oil spread...

Accept more poison to get less carbon? Kill this crazy idea NOW

Guest bloggers Van Jones, CAP Senior Fellow and former adviser to president Obama on green jobs, and Jorge Madrid, Research Associate at CAP, explain the shortcomings of the latest attempt to broker a Senate compromise on carbon.

As the U.S. Senate prepares to debate clean energy/climate legislation, some utility companies are quietly pushing a crazy idea.

In exchange for cutting their carbon emissions, power plants want to undermine the EPA and get permission to increase other kinds of...