UPDATE:   A must-read Salon piece:  “Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did.”

I’d love to hear your remembrances of this great man.  Here is mine.

MSM:  RIP.

The last of the great journalists has died.  Walter Cronkite never let his popularity lead him to believe that he was bigger than the story or that he didn’t have to do the hard work of serious reporting.  A young Cronkite probably couldn’t even get a job with a major news network today.

But the purpose of this post is not to critique the MSM, but remember the man.  I met him once, a decade ago.   He was keynoting a conference I was speaking at.  I managed to introduce myself and shake his hand.  He is as classy, humble, and generous in person as he seems on TV.

Cronkite said that he had read the pre-conference material and very much liked something I had written.  I was too awestruck to respond intelligently, but it dawned on me a few minutes later that perhaps he would consider writing a jacket quote from my forthcoming book (see “Cool Companies, Part 1: How the best businesses boost profits and productivity by reducing greenhouse gas emissions” and “The United States of Waste“).

Read more

Bizarrely, climate science deniers are touting a new study that finds we might return to the rapid global warming of the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) with much lower levels of CO2 than previously thought.

The PETM’s climate would be quite inhospitable to human civilization.  A February Nature article concluded (see “The Garden of Eden had a 40-foot, 1-ton snake plus 90°F average temperatures“):

If our Palaeocene estimates are correct, tropical temperatures at the slightly younger (55.8 Myr ago) Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) could have reached 38-40°C, resulting in widespread equatorial heat-death as recent models and other proxy data have predicted.

A 2006 Nature analysis of deep marine sediments beneath the Arctic found Artic temperatures during the PETM almost beyond imagination-above 23°C (74°F)-temperatures more than 18°F warmer than current climate models had predicted (see “A methane feedback from the past strikes again“). The three dozen authors of the 2006 paper concluded that existing climate models are missing crucial feedbacks that can significantly amplify polar warming “” as opposed to the imaginary negative feedbacks deniers like Lindzen claim while will magically save humanity from catastrophic warming (see Study: Water-vapor feedback is “strong and positive,” so we face “warming of several degrees Celsius”).

Now a new PETM study is out (click here), which deniers like Swift Boat smearer Marc Morano are touting as evidence climate models don’t accurately model the climate — but which rational climate science activists understand is yet more evidence that most climate models underestimate likely future warming.  Here is the Union of Concerned Scientists press release on the study:

Read more

On Fox & Friends Thursday morning, hate-radio and right-wing television personality Bill O’Reilly argued that clean energy legislation is a “cap and con” on behalf of “fat cat corporations.” He singled out General Electric — parent of MSNBC — and Goldman Sachs for his outrage against the carbon cap-and-trade market that is part of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act. O’Reilly continued to question the science of climate change, claiming only “the deity” knows why the planet is getting hotter:

Nobody knows why the earth is warming except the deity, so I’ll leave it to him or her, okay? But once you get into a system whereby the American worker is going to get hurt and the fat cat corporations are going to make money, and it’s not going to make much of a difference to the earth’s atmosphere, then you have to say, “This is not good!”

Watch it:

In reality, the effect of burning billions of tons of fossil fuels on our atmosphere is unequivocal, and only rapid and concerted action by the United States will prevent planetwide catastrophe. The United States is both the greatest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the only major nation not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. And as the European Union has proven, a carbon cap-and-trade system is an effective means for ensuring real reductions in greenhouse gases while securing the economy.

O’Reilly, who makes $10 million a year from the multinational News Corporation conglomerate, is probably not the most reliable advocate for the “little guy.” Organizations and activists not beholden to ExxonMobil or the corporate right, however, from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities to the NAACP, from the AFL-CIO to the League of Women Voters, support strong climate action. Our pollution-based economy hurts the “little guy” to the benefit of “fat cat corporations,” and clean energy reform is a critical step to redressing that injustice. And as venture capitalist John Doerr testified yesterday, only by joining the rest of the world with a plan to tackle this threat will U.S. workers have a shot in the 21st century economy.

O’Reilly concluded that he would be “stunned” if the bill “gets through the Senate,” because “you’re going to be able to, in the next election, hold these people accountable.” If the American public believes his lies, then he may be right.

Transcript: Read more

“The analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20%of their rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.  Resources in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current demand for electricity in the United States.”

With hydro, concentrated solar, demand response, existing nukes, and natural gas as a bridging/firming fuel — we’ve got all the low-carbon power we need.

Study Suggests Wind Power Potential Is Much Higher Than Current Estimates

Global wind energy potential is considerably higher than previous estimates by both wind industry groups and government agencies, according to a Harvard University study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.

“¦Using data from thousands of meteorological stations, the Harvard team estimated the world wind power potential to be 40 times greater than total current power consumption. A previous study cited in the paper put that multiple at about 7 times….

“Large-scale development of wind power in China could allow for an 18-fold increase in electricity supply relative to consumption reported for 2005,” the Harvard study said.

Palin’s stimulus veto prompts special session

Read more

One of the most tragic reasons global warming legislation doesn’t have more public support is the (mis)perception that it will primarily affect the poor and disadvantaged around the globe.  In fact, Hell and High Water will devastate poor and rich alike — it’s just that the poor have fewer resources available for coping with the impending catastrophe, and they often to live in areas most vulnerable to extreme weather.

If any proof were needed how hard extreme weather hits the disadvantaged, including poor African-Americans, one need look no further than Hurricane Katrina.  While no individual storm can be directly linked to global warming, energy and moisture picked up from warmer Gulf waters produce more intense winds and rain.  And in the case of Katrina, that extra punch may be what destroyed the levees protecting New Orleans–the “straw that breaks the camel’s back,” in the words of Dr. Kevin Trenberth, head of Climate Analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The deadly combination of sea level rise and warming Gulf waters mean that — unless we quickly get off our current emissions path — we’ll be seeing many more Katrinas (see “Why future Katrinas and Gustavs will be MUCH worse at landfall, Part 2” and “Nature: Hurricanes ARE getting fiercer “” and it’s going to get much worse“).

Those who want to take the strongest possible action on climate, like Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), are doing so in part because they recognize a moral responsibility we all have to both future generations and to the poor and disadvantaged.  It takes a great deal of chutzpah for anyone to accuse her climate leadership of have racist elements — especially someone who strongly opposes even the moderate climate action currently being considered by Congress, someone such as National Black Chamber of Commerce CEO Harry Alford, whose “group has received $350,000 from ExxonMobil since 2003 and [who] has a history of offering up climate skeptic talking points,” as Grist notes.

And yet Alford did just that in a Senate hearing yesterday. The National Republican Senatorial committee is already pushing this incident hard as if it reflects badly on Boxer, rather than Alford.  But that’s what we’re up against.

Below is the video of the exchange plus a description of this travesty by Brad Johnson, first published in Wonk Room.

Read more