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Climate scientists should not blame themselves for not making the case for Climate Change clear enough to the public several decades ago. The public should blame themselves for not taking the trouble to listen intently enough about such a moral, scientific, and existential issue. Listening to James Hansen on Climate Change, Thirty Years Ago and Now  On June 23, 1988—a blisteringly hot day in Washington, D.C.—James Hansen told a Senate committee that “the greenhouse effect has been detected and is changing our climate now.” At the time, Hansen was the head of nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and though his testimony was certainly not the first official warning about the “greenhouse effect”—a report to President Lyndon Johnson, in 1965, predicted “measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate” in the decades to follow—it was the first to receive national news coverage. The Times ran  the story  at the top of the front page, with a graph sho...

Governor Cuomo has some very ambitious green energy goals for New York State. This includes getting our state “Coal Free by 2020”: Governor Cuomo Announces New U.S. Climate Alliance Initiatives to Mark One-Year Anniversary of President Trump's Decision to Withdraw from the Global Paris Climate Accord U.S. Climate Alliance Initiatives Draw on New York State's Leadership in Combatting Climate Change, Renewable Energy, Reforming the Energy Vision Initiative, and Nation's Largest Green Bank New Commitments Include Reducing 'Super Pollutants,' Expanding Clean Energy Financing, Storing Carbon in Landscapes, and Softening the Negative Impact of Federal Solar Tariffs U.S. Climate Alliance States Remain on Track to Meet Their Share of U.S. Paris Agreement Target for at Least 25% Emissions Reductions by 2025 (June 1, 2018 GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO ) But this ambition is low on specifics. Also, New York State’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) #REV4NY is high on ambition and...

It won’t do humanity much good to increase renewable energy to address Climate Change and still back large fossil fuel projects. [See McKibben’s recent article in The Guardian “ Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet ”.  Our planet (any planet, really) only cares (responds) to how much greenhouse gases are in our climate system (our atmosphere and waters) to determine how much to heat up its surface. It’s physics. [See: “ How Global Warming Works ”.] Earth couldn’t care less about how much renewable energy we generate because renewable energy doesn’t trap the infrared light energy produced when the visible light energy from the sun bounces off the surface of our planet. It’s we who should care about renewable energy because we should like our planet to be habitable for quite a while longer. This is important to remember amidst all the articles on the rapid increase in renewable energy around the world and renewables’ dramatic drop in costs. At the e...

As we move further into the Climate Change Bottleneck, where our planet heats up more and our past environmental abuses (pollution, loss of biodiversity) catch up with us, we should transition quickly to clean energy sources. If you’re trying to visualize what a Climate Change Bottleneck looks like, check out this recent interactive article in the New York Times that reveals a world steadily getting impacted by climate-related disasters. “Christina DeConcini, the director of government affairs at the World Resources Institute, said that federal programs do not adequately emphasize adapting to the risks posed by climate change.” ( The Places in the U.S. Where Disaster Strikes Again and Again , May 24, 2018 New York Times) Many people agree with the moral proposition that we must change to a clean energy paradigm. Not doing so means a miserable future for all, which of course, is immoral. But many folks also doubt whether we can actually move to 100% renewables on a scale and time frame ...

In The Truth About Animals , author Lucy Cooke explains how incredibly wrong our ancestors got the facts about many animals because of our prejudices. The animals—sloths, bats, vultures, beavers, and many more—are still around and are now understood quite well. But it’s difficult today to imagine how strongly our ancestors believed the most ludicrous myths (migrating birds flew to the moon in winter) about these creatures. A little objective reasoning and keener observations would have relieved many people of their wild untruths about even the most common of animals. Will those for whom we will someday be their ancestors wonder in jaw-dropping incredulity at our unbelievable intransigence on Climate Change ? Why, might they ask, were we not convinced by the science of the day and the facts staring us right in the face? The answer is that we too still hold prejudices about reality. In our case, it may be because the implications of our admitting the enormity of the crisis keeps putting ...

From which side of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s mouth should we understand Climate Change ’s role in the rapid spreading of tick and mosquito infections? Our public health officials should offer more clarity about Climate Change and public health when communicating to the public. The report’s abstract does not mention Climate Change, nor does the CDC public information page on the study: “ Illnesses on the rise From mosquito, tick, and flea bites ”. In two of our major publications, the same CDC official seems to highlight the importance of Climate Change in the recent spread of vectorborne diseases in one paper and in the other paper shies away from this position. ·          From  The Washington Post : “Climate change, which experts say can exacerbate many public health threats, also plays an important role, allowing mosquitoes and ticks to thrive in warmer temperatures, said Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC's Di...

The French president’s call to “ Make our planet great again ” is more likely to occur if we renew efforts to make the Paris Agreement work.   Emmanuel Macron Takes Aim At Trump On Climate Change In Congressional Address  Some people care more about job growth than the survival of future generations, he said. French President  Emmanuel Macron  extolled the Franco-American relationship on multiple fronts but issued a stern warning about the need to address climate change during his address to a joint session of  Congress  on Wednesday.  Speaking entirely in English, Macron laid out the numerous ways ― human rights, trade, terrorism ― in which both the U.S. and France must strengthen multilateral ties in order to confront what he called a “new world order” marked by violence and conflict.  His most forceful comments came in the form of a veiled rebuke against President  Donald Trump  on climate policy. Macron has emerged as a leader in the...