Articles by Adam Browning

Right-wingers will do whatever Gore says not to

I bet it would work:

Better yet, maybe Gore will make a major speech telling people to not stick their tongues in wall sockets in an effort to save electricity. Afterward, expect lots of flickering lights in your neighborhood and fewer right-wing bloggers on the internets.

In which I come to the defense of Shellenberger and Nordhaus — sort of, anyway

I was planning on sitting out the Nordhaus/Shellenberger debate. But then I thought: Adam, you are not the top-rated Gristmill blogger (see list at left) for nothing. People want to hear from you. So, here's my take:

The first place Nordhaus and Shellenberger go wrong is their predilection for publicity photos that resemble '80s album covers.

After that, they get it mostly right. Carbon legislation is good and helpful, sure, but it's about 30 percent thought-through, enormously complicated, and anything that has a hope of actually getting signed is unlikely in the extreme to be sufficient to the task.

Look at the list of companies that have signed up to the much-ballyhooed Climate Action Partnership. Do you think they are calling for "the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions" because they think doing so will put them in any danger of having to fundamentally change the way they do business? Their "consensus principles and recommendations" have more wiggle room than Studio 54.

It doesn’t make sense — and that’s the point

More than a few people were taken in by a guy peddling a coal/solar hybrid system at Solar Power 2007. "But, smokestacks on the roof -- that just doesn't make sense," said a government bureaucrat, who shall remain unnamed pending resolution of my grant proposal.

Indeed, it doesn't. As the less credulous might have predicted, it was a marketing spoof by Sharp Solar:

Boxer vs Inhofe, round 2: The Rumble in Rayburn

If you will recall, the first round of their schoolyard squabble, on the occasion of Inhofe's filibustering of Gore's attempts to answer his questions, ended with a crushing uppercut by Boxer:

Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) finally intervened. "Would you agree to let the Vice President answer your questions?" Inhofe said Gore could respond when he was done talking, but Boxer wouldn't have it: "No, that isn't the rule. You're not making the rules. You used to when you did this. Elections have consequences. So I make the rules." The hearing audience applauded loudly.

Politico has the details of the next round. This time, Boxer taps out and its Senator Mikulski that delivers the TKO, capping an Inhofe rant with:

"It's more than the icecaps that are facing meltdown," begins Mikulski...

Snap. Could it be that Inhofe is worrying about the title fight?