Articles by Joseph Romm

Pro-warming Romney has sham slam on McCain

Think Progress has the whole story, but I'll repeat it here, since, tragically, it may represent the shape of things to come in climate politics for many years, making it hard for Republicans to do the moral thing on climate:

Last weekend, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) slammed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for supporting "radical climate change legislation," and "pushing for a massive new energy tax." Romney is using an anti-environment front group, the American Environmental Coalition (AEC), to attack McCain. Last week, AEC co-chair George Landrith said:

When it comes to climate change, John McCain and Al Gore are far too much alike for my comfort. John McCain has been sponsoring legislation for the past several years that would give Al Gore much of the regulatory control and power he sought when he and Bill Clinton tried to get America to sign on to the UN's Kyoto global warming treaty ...

When listening to John McCain, it would seem that evangelicals should remember the biblical warning found in St. Matthew 7:15 to "beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

Sad. And quoting the Bible, too! [Note to Romney/AEC -- You need a more plausible metaphor: McCain may be many things, but he's no sheep.]

Antarctic shrinking much faster than expected

The global warming deniers (and the rest of us) just can't catch a break: Vast areas of the Antarctic ice sheet -- which has 10 times as much ice as Greenland -- is losing mass much faster than anyone expected. And the rate of ice loss has quickened in the last decade. In fact, 2007's ice loss was 75 percent higher than 2006's.

Jeez, it's almost like ... I don't know ... the whole friggin' planet is melting, and we are to blame! If only we had a group of scientists who would, like, report regularly on the impending catastrophe and explain to us how to avoid it ...

As the Washington Post reports:

The Extreme (plug-in) Hybrid: no breakthrough needed!

Here is the plug-in hybrid I test drove a few weeks ago, the Extreme Hybrid by AFS Trinity:

I will be running a long article Wednesday on the climate implications of plug-ins in general and this car in particular. But you can read all about the car at this exclusive New York Times piece published today and the AFS Trinity website, which has a YouTube video of me driving the car and discussing why it matters:

Gore’s impromptu humor at a recent small climate summit

I'm not normally given to shameless name-dropping, but what else are blogs really for (other than making bets with readers)?

Over the last three days I attended a small climate solutions summit hosted by the former vice president and current Nobel laureate. It was off-the-record, so I can't report on presentations directly, but they have made me a lot smarter about the latest technologies and strategies for clean energy, which will inform my blogging this year on climate solutions. I will say now as an aside that I have become much more bullish on the potential for large-scale solar photovoltaics as a result of attending these meetings.

The VP asked me to speak for seven minutes on hydrogen at dinner Wednesday. Before dinner, I gave him a copy of the brand-new paperback edition of -- warning, shameless product placement -- Hell and High Water. He looked it over for a few minutes and said, deadpan: