by Chris Mooney, in a DeSmogBlog cross-post

This would be sad, if it weren’t also so telling.

On Monday I announced my new book The Republican Brain, which will be due out next spring. And I provided a brief description, as well as layering on plenty of nuance, like a good liberal, to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted.

So much for that!

Beginning with Roger Pielke, Jr. (not technically a conservative, but, well…), and then spreading to climate “skeptic” blogs like Watts Up With That and Marc Morano’s Climate Depot, conservatives are claiming that the book is a form of “new eugenics” and that it describes them as “genetically/mentally/psychologically inferior,” and so on.

All of this is completely without foundation, and in fact, contradicted by my own book announcement, which discusses the many strengths (as well as weaknesses) of the conservative psychology, and describes the left-right difference as a kind of necessary yin and yang.

And none of the people saying these things (including over 100 commenters at Watts’ site) have read the book because it isn’t out yet, and won’t be for 6 months. In fact, it is still being edited.

Chalk up yet another example of conservative factual wrongness! Perhaps I can even fit it into the text.

But that’s not all. These conservatives have somehow gotten the idea that Pielke, Jr., “reviewed” the book, although he did nothing of the kind. Here’s Anthony Watts:

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Climate hawks won a (relatively) big and “unlikely” victory this week.  Thanks to the leadership of Bill McKibben — with the help of countless others,  including many people who read Climate Progress — we stopped the Obama administration from its original plan to mindlessly permit the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

IF Obama is reelected — which is no more than about 50-50 at this point — then I agree with McKibben that the Keystone pipeline is probably dead.  But even setting aside the climate benefit of slowing the exploitation of the tar sands, the pipeline victory is far more than symbolic.

The key point is it absolutely would not have happened without the  emergence of an organized protest movement (see “A Climate Movement Is Born“).

So the victory hints at the possibility of even greater victories to come.  And so that leads to the weekend question:  What Should McKibben and the Climate Movement Do Next?  Bill will, I’m quite sure, read your comments.

by Auden Schendler, in a Grist cross-post

Come Friday, I’m usually pretty torched after a typical week of being attacked as a hypocrite for working on climate change in the ski industry, failing to get any attention from corporate funded politicians, or torquing on the status quo and getting nowhere because of rule No. 1 of climate activism: Given the choice between saving the world and having an awkward encounter in the supermarket because someone doesn’t agree with you, most humans will opt to avoid the awkwardness, despite the obvious imbalance in the equation.

So, often, I’ll join our company CFO for a cocktail. He will have, himself, spent the week trying to wrest chunks of money for efficiency retrofits out of tight budgets; or beating up sketchy financial models from clean energy projects. Our favorite cocktail is a Manhattan, which I mix up with some Gentleman Jack if possible, because I like owner Brown-Forman’s work on climate change. And, in theory, I escape. Or so I thought.

A terror-inducing study for the Commonwealth of Kentucky that just came across my radar has warned that global warming may affect weather patterns crucial to the Bourbon aging process.

Hey, now. Come on. Things are getting a little personal now.

For years we’ve been hearing that climate change will lead to increased drought, fire, super storms, floods, threats to oceans and fisheries, disruptions to food and water supply. But that’s just standard apocalypse. Now climate change is jacking with cocktail hour, and that’s no bueno. Maybe this will be the final straw that galvanizes people into action. Just this Wednesday alone there were two posts on the booze-climate connection. They were, not surprisingly given my worldview, both by friends who have been known to enjoy the occasional highball. Snowboarder Jeremy Jones talks about his climate nonprofit Protect Our Winters’ new collaboration with Alamos vineyards in the Huffington Post. Of course this makes sense: Alamos depends on Andes snowmelt to irrigate their vineyards.

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A cyber-penny for your thoughts.