I read this morning yet another dismal report on the extraordinary lengths to which Republican politicians hopeful of nomination as presidential candidate in America are going in their denial of climate change. Then I watched an excellent PBS television interview with a couple of intelligent and knowledgeable American scientists which regular Hot Topic commenter Bill had recommended.
It was an extraordinary juxtaposition, all the more surreal because both relate to Texas. How does a country like the US, with scientists and scientific institutions so advanced, manage to throw up leading politicians so wilfully ignorant? (That’s a rhetorical question unless your answer has nothing to do with money.) Continue reading “Jolting Contrasts”
The case for putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions from human activity is not arguable. It’s undeniable. But what is arguable is the best way of achieving it in the working of a modern economy. Shi-Ling Hsu, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, argues for a currently less popular way in his newly published book 
International shipping is responsible for an estimated 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to those of Germany, thirteen times those of New Zealand. On current trends they are expected to increase by 150-250 percent by 2050. They are as yet unregulated, trapped for over a decade in a familiar impasse where developed countries argue that all ships must be covered by the same regulation, the norm in the International Marine Organisation, but most developing countries insist that any regulation respects the principle that developed countries must lead the fight against climate change, known in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’.
We seem to have convinced the world that we’re right up in the forefront when it comes to tackling climate change.
Our warm congratulations to John Cook, the creator of the widely respected SkepticalScience website, co-author of