‘Climate’ Archives
BP buys oil-related search terms to make its official site show up first in search engines – If only they had been so clever in their operations or response
As BP’s oil disaster continues to ravage the Gulf Coast, the company is ramping up its public relations and legal operations to try to salvage its reputation and protect itself from lawsuits. Now, ABC News is reporting that one such tactic BP is using is purchasing search items that have the word “oil” in them on various search engines to [...]
The Prelude to Cheney’s Katrina
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Task Force concluded in May 2001 that “advanced, more energy efficient drilling and production methods: reduce emissions; practically eliminate spills from offshore platforms; and enhance worker safety, lower risk of blowouts, and provide better protection of groundwater [...]
BP oil disaster is Cheney’s Katrina – Bush Administration actions created unsafe circumstance, fostered oil addiction
BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Katrina. Cheney and President George W. Bush — seen above delivering his 2006 State of the Union address, where he famously stated that “America is addicted to oil” — consistently catered to Big Oil and other special interests to undercut renewable [...]
Climate Change Commitment II
A couple of months ago, we discussed a short paper by Matthews and Weaver on the ‘climate change commitment’ – how much change are we going to see purely because of previous emissions. In my write up, I contrasted the results in M&W (assuming zero CO2 emissions from now on) with a constant concentration scenario (roughly [...]
When corporations rule
The fatal disasters at the Upper Big Branch Mine and Deepwater Horizon are fresh evidence the Bush-Cheney corporate culture continues in some federal agencies charged with overseeing industry. President Obama needs to change that culture fast. Bill Becker, a regular CP contributor and Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action [...]
Big Oil’s Fairy Tale
I have a new Salon piece, which they headlined, “Obama’s daughter asked the wrong question: There’s not much that Obama himself can do to ‘plug the hole.’ But he could be honest about why the spill happened.” I’ll file this under humor, since I don’t have a special category for tragedy: When I was [...]
Support for offshore oil drilling, dirty energy production gets dispersed by BP oil disaster
In the wake of the largest oil disaster in U.S. history, two just released polls by USA Today/Gallup show that Americans are increasingly skeptical of increased offshore drilling — and increasingly support environmental protection. In the one month since the April 20th explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig, support for more offshore [...]
Will eco-disasters destroy Obama’s legacy?
That’s the headline of my new piece in Salon (click here). The president is in now in genuine political trouble over the BP disaster, some of his own making, some not. Here are my thoughts — as always, I’d love to hear yours: The truth is that there’s not much more that President Obama can do to stop the eco-disaster now [...]
On attribution
How do we know what caused climate to change – or even if anything did? This is a central question with respect to recent temperature trends, but of course it is much more general and applies to a whole range of climate changes over all time scales. Judging from comments we receive here and discussions elsewhere on the web, there is a fair [...]
The non-hype about climate change (and malaria) – A look at two new studies and how the media has misled both the public and the sloppy authors of the Nature study
There are many reasons why the public doesn’t understand how dire the climate situation is. We have a well-funded disinformation campaign, generally poor messaging by scientists, and many progressives and environmentalists who have been persuaded to downplay talk of global warming risks. And we have dreadful coverage by the status quo [...]
