China stops our Green Revolution in its tracks

by gjohnsit

 The news media and the political blogs are enraptured with handicapping the political races. No one has time to worry about real issues anymore. This is the silly season, when immigrant nannies and comments from comedians become "important". When shady television hucksters are inexplicably taken seriously and hold huge political rallies.

 Yet the real world, the one that operates on tangible things that make an actual difference in our lives, keeps chugging along.
  While some of you were busy obsessing about political trivialities, the governments of the world were entering a global trade war. This development entered a scary stage yesterday when Brazil decided not to attend the coming G20 summit.

 However, that was nothing compared to China's latest move.

continued at Daily Kos....

US Croplands, Climate Change, Biofuels and, um, Science.

by NNadir

I don't know if you've ever had occassion to sit at the dinner table with religious fundementalists and discuss science.

I have.   (I have, in fact, sat in the laboratory, and discussed science with religious fundementalists, but let's not talk about that.)

One of the more fun conversations like this - dinner table, not laboratory - involved a family member, who I happen to know has never opened a science book seriously in her life - informing all of the members of our family that "everything in the Bible has been verified by science."  

This is not by itself even remotely interesting except to inform us on one level about the prestige of science, since in former times science was only considered valid if it conformed to religion whereas, subtly without all that much notice, religions now seek validity from science and not the other way around.

Science has become a cultural talisman worldwide.   As it happens, the paper from the primary scientific literature comes from the journal Science...

continued at Daily Kos....

Another international failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions

by DWG

The Obama administration announced what appeared to be a breakthrough in international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions from the aviation sector. Here is the description from the State Department.

The United States welcomes the historic agreement today at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on international aviation and climate change. Delegates to the Assembly adopted an unprecedented global commitment to collective action among countries around the world —developed and developing—to limit and reduce carbon emissions from international aviation. ICAO recognized that further work is necessary to define the path forward on implementation and the United States affirmed its commitment to further efforts within ICAO.

An agreement "to limit and reduce carbon emissions from international aviation" would indeed be worthy of celebration because aviation emissions currently represent 5% of industrial emissions. Unfortunately, the agreement is mostly smoke and mirrors.

continued at Daily Kos....

Climate Hero Marshall closing in on Climate Zombie Burr

by A Siegel

In North Carolina, Democratic Party Senate nominee Elaine Marshall is closing on incumbent Senator Richard Burr.  While polling shows Marshall trailing some eight points, that is five points closer than just a week ago. North Carolinians are waking up to the election and taking notice of the stark contrasts between the two candidates.

One of those arenas of (extremely) stark contrast:  Clean Energy Opportunities and Climate Change Science.

continued at Daily Kos....