Michael Conathan, CAPAF’s Director of Ocean Programs, in a Science Progress cross-post.

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Association released new data yesterday showing precisely how the loss of environmental monitoring satellites would affect our ability to forecast extreme weather events.  NOAA used the example of the “Snowmageddon” storm that dumped massive precipitation from the Gulf of Mexico to New England on February 5-6, 2010.

We here at CAPAF and Climate Progress have been keeping close tabs on House Republicans’ efforts to make the country more vulnerable to extreme weather events. If Congress refuses to fund new environmental monitoring satellites to replace aging spacecraft that could fail at any time, it will undoubtedly expose Americans to increased risk from storms, floods, blizzards, and hurricanes. Meanwhile, more and more science is emerging that strengthens the link between unprecedented weather phenomena and human-caused global climate change.

Read more

CP has been tracking TP’s reporting on the Chamber of Commerce’s effort to intimidate bloggers (see Chamber lobbyists solicited firm to investigate opponents’ families, children).

Now TP’s Lee Fang has elicited comments on the Chamber’s tactics from one of the country’s leading experts on cyber-security, in a ThinkProgress repost.

Read more

“A price on carbon is the cheapest way to drive investment and jobs”

Australians of the future will look back on [opposition leader Tony] Abbott’s campaign with pity and shame. The pity and shame posterity reserves for leaders who miss the wave of history and misjudge the big calls.…

We will cut carbon pollution. We will not leave our nation stranded by history. We will not live at the expense of future generations. We will get this call right and get this job done: For our nation. For our people. For our future.

That is a small portion of a tremendous March 16 speech by Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (here, excerpted at length below).

Obama, sadly, now refuses to explain to the American public the high cost of inaction, the myriad benefits of swift action, and the shameful, pitiful strategy adopted by the pro-pollution, anti-science deniers in the GOP political leadership — although he did give pieces of what needs to be said in various speeches back in 2009 (see links at end).

Gillard’s speech is an excellent combination of substance and rhetoric.  The whole thing is worth reading since we’re unlikely to hear such a blunt and courageous speech in this country by any major U.S. political leader for a long time:

Read more

Interview with the authors of Evolution, Creationism, and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms

The National Center for Science Education has said of creationism that “students who accept this material as scientifically valid are unlikely to succeed in science courses at the college level.”

What follows is a Science Progress cross-post by Dr. Michael B. Berkman and Dr. Eric Plutzer, authors of Evolution, Creationism and the Battle to Control America’s Classrooms. Podcast interview with Diana Epstein, a Policy Analyst with the Center for American Progress.

Podcast: Play in new window | Right click to download.

Read more

Wind, solar becoming cost competitive: Chu

Clean sources of energy such as wind and solar will be no more expensive than oil and gas projects by the end of the decade, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.

Read more

While new plants are unlikely to be built in the United States over the next 25 years, nuclear power provides 20 percent of our electrical power and is climate friendly. We therefore must make existing reactors safer, develop a new generation of safer designs and prevent nuclear power from facilitating nuclear proliferation. As tragic as the Fukushima disaster has been, it has provided a rare opportunity to advance those goals.

Nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel has a good op-ed today, which the NYT gave the provocative headline, “It Could Happen Here.”  The Princeton professor is co-chairman of the International Panel on Fissile Materials. From 1993 to 1994 he was responsible for national security issues in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Here’s more:

Read more