Dr. Stephen Schneider, one of the greatest minds of the science of climate change, has died at the age of 65. Schneider advised every presidential administration since Nixon, founded the journal Climatic Change, was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers. He was also a unique voice, clearly expressing the threat of manmade global warming to the general public for over three decades. As he said in a 1979 appearance as a young scientist with an Eric-Bogosian mop of hair:

We’re insulting our global environment at a faster rate than we’re understanding it.

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On September 2, 2005, as the Gulf Coast reeled from Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Schneider appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher:

Every time we try to talk about getting a tax on these emissions, we’re told it’s an interference in the free market, as if we should get our garbage collected for free.

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In one of his last media appearances, the oft-smeared Dr. Schneider participated in a podcast with ClimateScienceWatch about his recent paper, “Expert Credibility in Climate Change,” co-authored with blogger Jim Prall, Jacob Harold, and lead author William Anderegg. A moon-faced Schneider vehemently explained that credible expertise is a life-and-death matter:

It really matters what your credentials are. If you have a heart arrhythmia, as I do, and I also have a cardiologist — and you also have an oncological problem, as I do, I’m not going to my cancer doc to ask him about my heart medicine and my cardiologist to ask about my chemo, I’m going to the experts. Who is an expert really matters. People with no expertise, their opinion frankly doesn’t matter much on complex issues, and in my opinion, shouldn’t even be quoted about complex details of science.

Watch it:

His most recent book, Science as a Contact Sport, is a delightful work reminiscent of Richard Feynman’s memoirs, full of amusing anecdotes and remarkable breakthroughs that reveal both a diamond-hard scientific mind and an effervescent joy for life.

I tried to catch him for an interview at the Copenhagen climate conference last December, but we couldn’t make our schedules mesh. Fortunately for myself and the rest of the human race, Dr. Schneider will live on through his great opus of work. Sadly, time is running out for us to honor his legacy by turning back the black tide of global warming.

Prof. Stephen Schneider, one of the truly important voices in climate science of our time, has died.  For over three decades, he had been researching and speaking out on the need to sharply and quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Schneider served as a consultant to Federal Agencies and White House staff in the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations…..

Schneider was the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death.

Schneider managed this urgent message even while consistently focusing on the uncertainties inherent in the science — he understood that the uncertainties made the case stronger, not weaker, particularly since most of the uncertainty is on the high end of climate sensitivity and impacts.  And he managed this even while he battled and beat a rare cancer.”

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Here’s another in our ongoing series on Big Oil’s attempt to repeal California’s clean energy law (for background, see “Proposition 23 puts clean energy in danger.” Today’s blogger is CAPAF’s Rebecca Lefton.

Yesterday more than 100 economists with expertise in California energy and climate issues signed an open letter warning against delaying the implementation of clean energy policies.  The 118 economists support the policies created under Assembly Bill 32, or AB 32 that will “stimulate innovation and efficiency,” “help the state become a technological leader in the global marketplace,” “improve our energy security, create new business opportunities and more jobs,” and “provide immediate benefits to the health and welfare of residents by reducing local pollutants.”

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The incredible shrinking solar cell

The next generation of solar cells will be small. About the size of lint. But the anticipated impact: That’s huge.

Some of these emerging electricity-generating cells could be embedded in windows without obscuring the view. Engineers envision incorporating slightly larger ones into resins that would be molded onto the tops of cars or maybe the roofs of buildings. One team of materials scientists is developing microcells that could be rubber-stamped by the millions onto a yard of fabric. When such cells shrink in size “” but not efficiency “” it becomes hard to imagine what they couldn’t electrify.

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Another blow to the “breakthroughs will save us” bunch

CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss reports on the new GAO report on CCS.  For background, see “Is coal with carbon capture and storage a core climate solution?”

The Senate clean energy and global warming debate should begin the week of July 26^th.   As it looms closer, Senators John Rockefeller (D-WV) and George Voinovich (R-OH) introduced comprehensive legislation to invest in “carbon capture and sequestration” technology (often called “clean coal”) that would capture and permanently store 80 percent or more carbon pollution from coal fired power plants.  Yet they oppose legislation to shrink carbon pollution, which would create a market for CCS technology.  On Friday July 16^th, the Government Accountability Office unmasked the inconsistency of this approach when it determined that CCS remains an “immature” technology, and a price on carbon is essential to its development and deployment.

GAO found that many barriers remain before widespread adoption of CCS:

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This is a CAP cross-post by Jorge Madrid and Alex C¡rdenas.

The harsh realities of the BP oil disaster and ongoing unemployment from our national recession are driving an important conversation in Washington about our addiction to oil and the promise of a clean and green future. Simply put, this disaster must result in directing our nation toward policies that make the United States more competitive in the green economy, while at the same time providing opportunities for many Americans who have been deeply harmed by the recession.

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Jim Manzi was recently installed as an “In-House Critic” blogger at The New Republic.   His first post on the economics of climate change was widely criticized — see “In a bizarre self-inflicted wound, TNR hires right-wing misinformer to debunk its articles.

Among its flaws, the piece argued that the only economically justified action on climate change was government subsidies for new technologies.  It’s a stance which cuts far against the mainstream economic view, as guest blogger Michael A. Livermore explains.

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