Lomborg: Smarter Response to Global Warming

Writing in the Washington Post, Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg on the lack of meaningful action on climate change:

Even though no one should have been surprised by the outcome of last month’s global climate summit in Copenhagen, the lack of any meaningful action unleashed a torrent of angry and disappointed rhetoric. “The outcome of Copenhagen doesn’t at all match the needs . . . of mankind,” complained Sweden’s environment minister. “By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life,” added Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. And those were some of the milder comments.

Critics, however, should calm down.

The Science and Politics of Climate Change

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Mike Hulme has given us the most eloquently clear and reasonable outlook on the intersection of science, politics, economics, and the public that I have yet come across.

Beautiful NASA video of weather systems

Via Gizmodo: a gorgeous NASA composite of weather systems on earth, developed at Goddard with the Earth System Modeling Framework.

Why DO we disagree about climate change?

The NY Times Green Inc blog interviewed Mike Hulme today on major disagreements over geo-engineering. Have we painted ourselves into a corner? Hulme is the author of Why We Disagree About Climate Change.
“With a global summit on the topic, COP15, less than two months away — and the prospects for reaching an agreement there growing [...]

Climate Change threatens national parks

A new report, reported in USA Today outlines major hazards to our national parks, with climate change presenting the greatest. The report’s data comes from Global Impacts in the United States, which we just published.