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2015: A year of progress and buffoonery on climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on January 3rd, 2016
Washington Post: LAST WINTER, bitter cold on the East Coast prompted Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) to take a snowball onto the Senate floor in mockery of climate scientists. This winter, the weather is so warm that there are not two snowflakes in the Washington area for Mr. Inhofe to scrape together.
Just as last winter’s cold did not disprove global warming, this winter’s warmth does not, in itself, establish that humans are raising Earth’s average temperature. Rather, it is the long-term trend that matters...
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A disappointing but long-awaited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on November 7th, 2015
Washington Post: AT LEAST it’s over.
President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, ending an unseemly political dispute marked by activist hysteria, GOP hyperbole, presidential weakness and a general incapability of various sides to see the policy question for what it was: a mundane infrastructure approval that didn’t pose a high threat to the environment but also didn’t promise much economic development. The politicization of this regulatory decision, and the consequent warping of the issue...
Increased fracking without increased inspections puts the environment at risk
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on June 8th, 2014
Washington Post: OVER THE past decade, a U.S. energy boom has cut oil and natural gas imports, revitalized manufacturing and enriched rural communities. But will the massive increase in oil and natural gas production mar the environment?
We believe that the risks are manageable, but success will depend on rules that limit air and water pollution from unconventional drilling, which the Obama administration is formulating, and on adequate enforcement of those rules. On that front, several reports from the Government...
Methane, friend and foe for climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on February 17th, 2014
Washington Post: A STUDY in the journal Science finds that the United States is putting a lot more methane, a potent contributor to global warming and the primary compound in natural gas, into the air than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated. But the report also shows that the problem is fixable -- and not a reason to shut down the controversial extraction method known as fracking. Natural gas, as a transitional fuel, remains an important response to climate change.
Methane is a powerful driver...
Global warming detailed in new temperature records
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on March 16th, 2013
Washington Post: SCIENTISTS HAVE a good sense of what the Earth's climate has been like over the past handful of centuries. But what about many thousands of years back?
In a recent article in the journal Science, researchers at Oregon State University and Harvard explained how they used marine fossils to piece together a rough temperature record going back 11,300 years to the most recent ice age. That record indicates that the Earth warmed as it emerged from the ice age, followed by a long-term cooling trend....
Not so fast on blaming global warming
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on July 17th, 2012
Washington Post: CAN YOU BLAME the scorching weather on climate change? Not really. Or at least not yet.
In a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report released last week, researchers attempted to determine how much they could attribute six extreme weather events last year to human-caused global warming. Even now, months on, some experts worry that drawing conclusions is precipitous. Figuring out what caused a flood in Thailand or a drought in Texas is hard. Doing it quickly is harder.
Scientists...
Obama’s Keystone pipeline rejection is hard to accept
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on January 18th, 2012
Washington Post: On Wednesday, the State Department announced that it recommended rejecting the application of TransCanada Corp. to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and Mr. Obama concurred. The project would have transported heavy, oil-like bitumen from Alberta -- and, potentially, from unconventional oil deposits in states such as Montana -- to U.S. refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coast.
Environmentalists have fought Keystone XL furiously. In November, the State Department tried to put off the politically...
Stop the coal resurgence in its tracks
Posted by Washington Post: Editorial on March 27th, 2011
Washington Post: AS THE CRISIS at Japan’s stricken reactors wears on, it’s increasingly clear what a step away from nuclear power will mean for Europe and Asia: more coal, which means more nasty particulates, carcinogens, carbon dioxide and other dangerous effluences spewing from sooty smokestacks around the world.
As radiation levels outside the Fukushima Daiichi plant rise, so did the value of stocks of American companies that mine and export the black stuff. Business analysts expect demand for U.S. coal to...