Articles by Adam Browning

And this is why they are going to hell

There are those that take money from others for personal gain. We call them crooks.

And then there are those that take money from oil companies, and in exchange do whatever they can to end the world as we know it. We call them the Bush administration. From today's New York Times:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

...

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet." The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.

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The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.

I would love to wait by the pearly gates with a camcorder. Won't they be surprised!

Europeans vote: Solar

A new poll asked the question:

To reduce dependency on imported energy, which of the following should the government focus on in the years to come?

The highest polling answer? Solar.

And the least favorite option was nuclear, probably due to the fact that Europe doesn't have a drilling-ANWR-option (PDF) to occupy that rung.

Solar enjoys similar levels of support in the U.S. This past summer we used the well-respected Field Poll to gauge support for California's Million Solar Roofs initiative, and found 77% of Californians gave it the green light -- and that's without explaining the benefits.

That's political capital. In the months leading up to the California Public Utilities Commission's vote on the 11-year, $3.2 billion solar incentive program, we helped organize a demonstration of the popular mandate, and over 50,000 Californians emailed the Commission in support. 50,000 may sound modest -- until you consider that that's one in a thousand Californians (if one were to correct for literacy, internet access, etc., the number becomes even more impressive). The CPUC received more emails on this than on any other subject in their history, including the 2001 energy crisis.

Most importantly, when the only poll that really counts was taken, the measure passed 3-1.

Press wonders why press doesn’t do a better job

In an Op-Ed in Wednesday's Washington Post, David Ingatius muses whether, in the press's collective posture on global warming, "we are all but ignoring the biggest story in the history of humankind."

Setting aside for the moment issues such as his overly generous -- and blame-diluting -- usage of the royal we, and the question of why someone as well-placed as he is doesn't decide to do something about it, I'd like to muse a little myself about the best way of writing about global warming.

Many have blamed politicians' failure to take global warming seriously on scientists' techno-prose and reluctance to make unequivocal conclusions concerning their highly complex research. A failure to communicate, if you will.

Ignatius deems Elizabeth Kolbert the best reporter on the subject, and I can't argue with that conclusion on the whole, except to say that in her latest article in the Jan. 9 edition of the New Yorker, titled "Butterfly Lessons," readers are treated to two pages of butterfly trivia, including no less than eight Latin names, before giving the reader any indication that the article is really about global warming, how it's killing butterflies, and how we're next.

Frankly, I'd like to see a page taken from the Bush Administration's 9/11 discourse: In every newspaper, a quote a day from a top scientist saying: "We're scared as shit. And you should be too."

James Woolsey on clean tech

Clean Edge has an interview with James Woolsey (who Grist has also interviewed), past director of the CIA and now co-chairman of the Committee on Present Danger, about how Osama really does love your SUV.

Bob Baer's book Sleeping With the Devil discusses how terrorists taking out the sulfur-cleaning towers in northeastern Saudi Arabia could take six million barrels per day off the market for up to a year, which would wreak economic devastation on our country. The United States borrows about $2 billion per day to finance our consumption. One billion of that is money for oil, and the Mid East is home for two-thirds of that oil. We are living on top of a volcano as long as we are that dependent on foreign oil.