Climate Change

It’s All About the Feedback

A fairly common reaction to climate science is to wonder how changes in the concentration of a trace gas can have a substantial effect on the world’s climate.  As it turns out, this is exactly the right question to ask. There’s a great post at RealClimate working through the logic. The direct effect of increased …

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Prop 23: Spinning the Poll Numbers

A new email blast from the California Jobs Initiative trumpets: “Brand new Los Angeles Times poll puts Yes on 23 in the LEAD!”  That’s true, sort of.  Or at least it has what Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness.” The LA Times story is headlined: “Proposition 23 poll shows a dead heat among California voters.”  As shown …

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Meg Whitman, Prop 23, and AB 32

Meg Whitman takes the position that Prop 23 is wrong, but she says that she’ll suspend California’s keystone climate legislation,AB 32, for a year if she’s elected.  The Berkeley White Paper on Prop 23 takes a different view than she does of the economic impact of Prop 23. Her proposal, which takes advantage of an …

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Air Resources Board Does Some Punting On SB 375 Targets

As I blogged, the California Air Resources Board yesterday set greenhouse gas targets for the eighteen metropolitan regions in the state, which these regions must try to meet through a land use and transportation planning process. The Board basically split the difference of what the staff recommended. For the four largest regions, staff wanted 5-10% …

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The Myth of SB 375

Today is a big day for SB 375, California’s much-heralded land use and transportation law. The Air Resources Board is setting greenhouse gas emissions targets for each metropolitan region covered by the law. The regions then have to develop a plan to meet these targets through comprehensive land use and transportation planning. That means reorganizing …

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Prop 23 and PG&E: Setting the Record Straight

The California Jobs Initiative is spreading a highly misleading story about PG&E’s opposition to Prop 23, the ballot measure to suspend California’s keystone climate legislation (AB 32).  The story appears in an email that they’ve circulated widely.  To make it easy to understand, I’m leaving the truthful parts of their story in black and putting …

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Will the Future Be “Made in China”?

America used to b a place where the future happened first. Now we seem to be fight any kind of change, whether the issue is immigration, health care, the financial system, or energy.

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Women Know More About Climate Change, Men Think They Do

Sociologist Aaron McCright, in a recently published academic article, analysed 7 years of Gallup polling data on environmental issues (from 2001-2008) and reached these startling (not) conclusions: women have a greater scientific understanding of climate change than men do; women are more likely than men to worry that climate change is a large problem; but men think they …

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The Top Ten Facts You Didn’t Know About Kochgate

10. Until the recent disclosures about funding for Proposition 23 in California, you probably hadn’t heard much about Koch Industries because it’s a family business, although it does $100 billion in sales per year. 9. Charles Koch co-founded the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank dedicated to saving companies like Koch from the horrors of …

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Prop 23 and Little Oil

Prop 23 is getting national attention, including a story in the NY Times: Charles and David Koch, the billionaires who have played a prominent role in financing the Tea Party movement, donated $1 million to the campaign to suspend the Global Warming Solutions Act enacted four years ago, and signaled that they are prepared to …

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