Also, increases in per capita energy and electricity use do not correlate with increases in well-being in developed countries

Climate science is the foundation of this blog, the sine qua non for all the other analyses.

The reasons we must be far more ambitious in politics and policy and clean technology deployment are the increasing evidence of accelerated carbon-cycle feedbacks and the dire warnings from the scientific community about the dangers of unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).

Yet, most new climate science remains either under-reported or mis-reported by most of the traditional media and blogosphere.  And, like CO2 concentrations, the rate of growth (of important science articles) is growing faster as the reality of human-caused climate changes grows — and it’s growing faster than ClimateProgress can cover thoroughly.  At the same time, climate politics and the disinformers and media miscoverage and clean energy solutions and nuclear power and natural gas and peak oil and on and on … also demand attention.

What to do?  Well, I hope to be hiring someone soon to help cover some of these issues.  Also, I have a plan to expand coverage of climate science.

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Foreign Policy’s Steve LeVine explains, “The itsy-bitsy problem that doomed BP’s well“:

In a new report prepared for the U.S. Interior Department, though, we get good news and bad news. The good news is that the blowout preventer does what is suggested in the photos and accompanying charts. The bad news, according to the 551-page report by Det Norske Veritas, a Norwegian risk management company, is that it only does so in photographs and charts, and not in real-life crises such as the Macondo blowout. (Here is volume 1 of the report. Here is volume 2).

The industry and even the Interior Department want to apply dispersant to this problem so that no one sees it, but it is simply too important a matter to let that happen.

Now none of this is really news — see my May 2010 story, Stupak stunner: Oil well’s blowout preventer had leaks, dead battery, design flaws, “How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?”

Still, this new Interior report should be a wake-up call to the industry and the Gulf Coast.  Here’s Maddow’s must-see story, in which she notes, “The Interior Dept. is not happy with our coverage of this issue. And you know what? I’m glad”:

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Let’s file this ThinkProgress repost (with video) under ‘notes from a plutocracy’.

The New York Times reported Friday that General Electric’s effective tax rate in 2010 was zero. Despite making $14.2 billion in profits, the company received $3.2 billion in tax benefits. GE is able to drive down its effective tax rate via “an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”

The fact that hugely profitable companies receive billions in benefits from taxpayers clearly makes the case for ending giveaways in the corporate tax code and cracking down on companies that use tax havens to shelter income overseas. However, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), when asked about GE’s zero percent tax rate today on CNBC, replied that the real problem is the U.S. corporate tax rate is too high:

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Everyone’s ready for spring break after a long winter.  CAP has some ideas for those who want to relieve their stress without stressing out the planet.

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