Articles by Joseph Romm
Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
All Articles
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Summarizin’
The summary for policymakers (PDF) of the report by the IPCC Second Working Group is out!
A summary of the summary:
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More on fourth IPCC report
Bring your tissue to this one. On Friday, the IPCC publicizes its "emotional heart," the Second Working Group's contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report, covering impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.
Preliminary drafts have been leaked. Why is it shaping up to be such a tear-jerker? According to Andrew Weaver, a lead author of Working Group I and climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, this one illustrates "a highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction."
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More on Supreme Court decision
In November, the issue of EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions went before the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the decision (PDF) was announced -- 5-4 in favor of Massachusetts, meaning that the EPA does have the authority and responsibility to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. In short, the time to act is now!In the chutzpah department, EPA actually tried to argue that 1) "any EPA regulation of motor-vehicle emission" was a "piecemeal approach to climate change that would conflict with the President's comprehensive [!] approach" -- comprehensive, I suppose, in the sense that he refuses to take any substantive action in every sector, and 2) such regulation "might hamper the President's ability to persuade key developing nations to reduce emissions" -- a particularly amazing argument, since the president has been working hard behind the scenes to persuade key developing nations not to reduce emissions. Justice Stevens, writing for the majority, made short work of those absurd arguments.
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How high and how fast?
How high and fast will sea levels rise? An important piece (PDF) by Stefan Rahmstorf in Science concludes:
A rise of over 1 m by 2100 for strong warming scenarios cannot be ruled out, because all that such a rise would require is that the linear relation of the rate of sea-level rise and temperature, which was found to be valid in the 20th century, remains valid in the 21st century.
