By Zachary Shahan •
February 6, 2010
Michael Mann, the somewhat infamous climate scientist from Penn State, shouldn’t be so infamous after all, we find out yet another time!
“An academic inquiry into the so-called ‘climategate’ email scandal has concluded that a well-known U.S. scientist [Mann] did not directly or indirectly falsify data in his research,” according to Mike De Souza of the National Post.
The investigation made it very clear (as other peer-reviewed analyses have done) that Mann’s “trick,” so horribly taken out of context and demonized by anti-science media and followers, was nothing unscientific, misleading or to be concerned about.
“They were not falsifying data,” said the report. “They were trying to construct an understandable graph for those who were not experts in the field. The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.”
Furthermore, the report went on to praise Mann for how he dealt with this greatly unfounded skepticism and criticism of his scientific work. “The report praised Dr. Mann for his ‘composure’ and ‘forthright response’ to all questions, finding no evidence that he had attempted to hide or destroy information, emails or data from his research. It also cleared him of allegations of misusing any privileged or confidential information he had access to as an academic scholar.”
By Zachary Shahan •
January 31, 2010
Hollywood, as a whole, is one of the most powerful entities (can I call it that?) in the world. Some of its biggest stars are getting involved in the politics of climate and clean energy now.
A great new video on the web featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Forest Whitaker, Ed Norton, Justin Long, and others nails the key points of climate and energy legislation with the most popular language.
One of the stars even decides to drop his pants because of the heat (climate change).
By Zachary Shahan •
January 30, 2010
It’s time to get angry. This is what John Kerry, not exactly the most extreme guy, is saying to us. Is it the best solution?
This is what Kerry told advocates of climate legislation recently:
“I want you to go out there and start knocking on doors and talking to people and telling people this has to happen. You know, if the Tea Party folks can go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God’s sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they’re being killed and our planet is being injured by what’s happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That’s something worth getting angry about.” (emphasis mine)
As part of my Bachelor’s thesis in sociology and environmental studies, about 6 years ago, I studied the history of the environmental movement in great depth. Since then, I have been keeping my eye on things, on the bigger picture, as I work in different fields — natural and organic foods, city planning and sustainable development, alternative transportation, and, now, online journalism with a green tint.
The underlying question, consistently, is: “How do we avoid, or — worst case scenario — deal with, huge environmental collapse?”
The issues have only gotten bigger (see: Global Warming in the Arctic — Much Worse than We Thought!, Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster than Ever and Oceans Absorbing CO2, Preventing Climate Change — Good, Right? No). But we seem to be going down the same road consistently, despite all the amazing efforts of people trying to turn this car around (and transform it into something green-friendly). The environmental movement, perhaps bigger than ever, still seems on the brink of failure.
By Zachary Shahan •
January 24, 2010
That takes my breath away. In one of the biggest renewable energy deals in the history of the world, a Korean consortium led by Samsung* has agreed to build 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power capacity in the Canadian province of Ontario.
Samsung C&T and the Ontario government signed the deal on Thursday, January 21st. The agreement will bring thousands of jobs and clean energy for more than half a million homes to Ontario.
Building off of this new deal, Korean trade officials plan to make Ontario their base of operations for all of North American.
By Zachary Shahan •
January 22, 2010
Business leaders from a diverse range of sectors and interests have called on Obama and Congress to make clean energy legislation a reality this year. Together, they have written a letter to Obama and Congress urging them to realize that we are very quickly being left behind by Asia, Europe and others on the technologies and jobs of the future.
The “We Can Lead” companies include eBay, Starbucks, Nike, Timberland, Hewlett-Packard, Gap Inc., Virgin America, Exelon, PG&E, and dozens of others.
Why are they behind climate and energy legislation? Among other reasons (i.e. we need it to address human-induced, super fast, catastrophic climate change), these businesses make the point that it would create 1.7 million new jobs in the US.
By Zachary Shahan •
January 14, 2010
India has been a bit of a wild card on climate change and clean tech issues. Like China (but not to the same extent), India made the Copenhagen climate negotiations more of a challenge, reluctant to commit to internationally binding targets and international transparency. One day they weren’t willing, then they might be, then they weren’t again. Then, they finally committed to cutting their carbon intensity 20-25% by 2020.
But without a stong, legally-binding, widely-accepted agreement, we are all left wondering what they (and others) will actually do.
Now, we are actually seeing India steam forward. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following Copenhagen, said, “There is no escaping the truth that the nations of the world have to move to a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions and energy-efficient-development path.” He said that India “must not lag behind” in low-carbon technologies. Jairam Ramesh, Indian environment minister, followed this up by saying that India would go ahead with its carbon intensity reduction plans (above) even despite the lack of a strong agreement. “We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” he said.
And just this week, India announced it is launching its “National Solar Mission” which includes creating enough solar power that it could power about 20 million US houses.
It has more going on this month, too.
By Timothy B. Hurst •
January 13, 2010
American Farm Bureau votes on a resolution opposing cap-and-trade and any legislation that would empower EPA to regulate carbon emissions.
By Zachary Shahan •
January 8, 2010
That’s right, you read the headline correctly. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina is getting censored by his own colleagues because of his clean energy, reduce greenhouse gases and carbon pollution, improve energy security message, but he is not letting up.
The Senator gave a speech this week that looks like it could have been given by Obama or Al Gore.
By Susan Kraemer •
December 20, 2009
A very beautifully designed interactive map via the AP Climate Pool shows which countries were naughty and which countries were nice when it comes to their greenhouse gas emissions, and also shows each nation’s pledges to do better in the future.
By Zachary Shahan •
December 4, 2009
Fear. It is a simple emotion. It is a feeling. But it can also create something complicated — in what it makes us think and do. Fear drives many decisions in the world, and may often cause us to make the wrong decision.
The important thing is realizing the difference between thoughtful awareness of negative ramifications and the actual feeling of fear.
On the following pages, I delve into the relationship between fear and the climate change decisions we are making everyday on individual and larger systematic levels. Additionally, I delve a little more into the issue of fear itself.
