As promised, here’s yet another bunch of links for your leisurely perusal:
Fortune writer Adam Lashinsky has a great round-up from the Brainstorm Green conference. My only beef is with this, about Lomborg:
Even if you believe that global warming is an abject crisis, I simply reject the argument that it’s a bad idea to test your beliefs by listening to someone who disagrees or who is proposing a different solution.
Well … of course. The question is whether, after their work has been met with dozens of devastating rebuttals, they should be allowed to simply recite it again, in a highly public forum, without acknowledging the rebuttals and without anyone there to raise them. Lomborg’s "counterintuitive" shtick makes him crack to media types, who give him an absurd degree of latitude.
Rep. John Dingell, whose committee will be deeply involved in the development of a cap-and-trade bill, recently gave a speech to the EIA that offered a great deal of insight onto his current thinking. You should read the whole thing, but this particular bit is evil:
The development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies is fundamental to continued coal use in an increasingly carbon constrained world. Increased funding will be necessary to harness new technologies. In addition, the question of when CCS technologies will be available will be critical in determining an aggressive, yet realistic, timeline for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
That last sentence, translated into English, means that carbon reductions will proceed on a schedule that is convenient to coal companies rather than heedful of the latest science. That’s the conservative line right now, and it’s sh*tty for Dingell to be buying it.
John Quiggen argues that, “Despite the claims of Dark Browns and Deep Greens, we can, if we choose, have both a stable climate and steadily improving standards of living throughout the world.”
Steven Hayward, speaking for the Dark Browns, expresses the Conservative Can’t-Do Spirit.
One area where greens are falling short, communication-wise, is in stressing the connections between a clean environmental and human health. The DesMoines Register reports on anti-coal statements from the Iowa Medical Society, the Center for Disease Control, the Florida Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Black Hawk County Board of Health. These are powerful allies that are not being fully utilized by the national greens.
The Columbia Journalism Review takes a look at the delicate dance Clinton and Obama are doing on green issues; see also CJR on green jobs.
In Science Progress, Chris Mooney lays out what will be required to prepare the Gulf Coast for changes that climate change has already made inevitable. Turns out, a) it’s a huge, huge job, and b) we are totally and completely unprepared. Shocker.
I’ve actually been meaning to post something about this for a while, but Ode magazine beat me to it: green fast-food restaurants! I found this article perversely fascinating, given that I haven’t eaten fast food in years.
