Articles by Joseph Romm

The cost of acting first on climate change vs. the cost of not acting

"Lose-lose: the penalties of acting alone stall collective effort on climate change" is an article the Financial Times ran a while back. While the piece gives a panoramic analysis of the international prisoner's dilemma, there are two other angles that are missing. The first is the penalties of no one acting. According to the UK's environmental minister, the economic rationale for inaction is that the first country to act risks undergoing some degree of economic hardship. This, he explains, is "the last refuge of the deniers -- the idea that it's not worth anyone doing anything unless everyone does it."

On ‘scientific reticence’ and sea-level rise

Sea level rise of 5 meters in one century? Even if most scientists will not say so publicly, that catastrophe is a real possibility, according to the director of NASA's Goddard Institute Of Space Studies.

It may seem like I single Hansen out for recommended reading. But that's only because he:

• is the nation's top climatologist
• writes prolifically
• speaks with unusually bluntness for a scientist
• has been more right than just about any climate scientist

He has written a terrific piece for the open-access Environmental Research Letters on "Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise":

I suggest that a "scientific reticence" is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control. I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level change issue.

I could not agree more. In researching my book Hell and High Water, many leading climate scientists spoke to me candidly off the record that they share Hansen's fear. Fortunately, more and more are speaking out.

Hansen is especially concerned that sea level rise is nonlinear:

They went down because of random factors, not Bush

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions dropped 1.3% in 2006, as the Energy Information Administration reported yesterday.

President Bush immediately took credit:

"We are effectively confronting the important challenge of global climate change through regulations, public-private partnerships, incentives, and strong economic investment."

[Please, no laughing.]

In spite of the fact that Bush has actually gutted programs aimed at the promoting clean energy technologies, last year's emissions dropped because of:

More debunkery of everyone’s favorite fiction writer

While Planet Gore now has the market cornered on entertaining global warming disinformation, Michael Crichton perfected it. For those last two or three people who still think the technothriller writer has his facts straight, check out reasic's terrific post on Crichton's inane 2003 talk, "Aliens Cause Global Warming."

Yes, Crichton, a real medical doctor, actually said:

Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?

Wow! Not knowing the difference between weather and climate is like not knowing the difference between a general practitioner and an epidemiologist. I don't know what's worse -- the possibility that Crichton is just spouting standard denier crap he knows is crap, or the possibility he actually believes what he is saying.

Kudos to Coby Beck for pointing this post out.