As COP15 comes to a close without a clear path forward forward from Kyoto, it is difficult not to become dismayed at the growing gulf between the urgency of climate science and the pace of international negotiations. While it provides little solace, there is little doubt that the economic calamities of the past two years …
Category: Policy
An SNRE climate Christmas song: "Senate Baby…"
Posting for a colleague in the School of Natural Resources and Environment: "A portion of the SNRE faculty band, the Ecotones, just recorded a version of "Senate Baby" (to the tune of Santa Baby). It's a musical plea for the US Senate and our delegates in Copenhagen to 1) pass the bill at home and …
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“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”
“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Yesterday I got into an exchange with a person who posted a comment wishing the curse of a pox to the students writing on the UoMichigan COP15 Blog . It reminded me of Joseph Welch’s question to Senator Joe McCarthy, “You've done enough. Have you …
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New climate books. And some solutions.
I'm in a Bellona Foundation session with the authors of three new climate books Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate, by Stephen Schneider, my friend and former Stanford colleague, about his decades of work to move climate change onto the political agenda and keep it there, against skeptics and …
Interesting lunch
Laura Bell and myself happened to have lunch with a delegate from Turkey. The delegate was roughly around our age and was tasked with being the environmental adviser for her country. Her particular specialty is air quality and air pollution with more of a focus on measurements and monitoring. Imagine 28 years old and being …
U.S. Center Event- Ken Salazar Secretary of Interior
I spent some time this morning listening to a talk by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. One thing that was striking to me was their (Obama Administration) willingness to embrace a policy eerily similar to that of the previous administration regarding off-shore drilling. Mr. Salazar mentioned that it was an avenue that will be …
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Michiganders Everywhere
Since I have been at Copenhagen, it is amazing me just how many people, both speakers and attendees, are either from Michigan or went to UofM. Yesterday I attended a press conference where the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs (Otero) and another speaker, whose name fails me at the moment. Both …
Starting Line, Almost There
Copenhagen / Countdown (4) / Conference Starts As luck would have it, I, the so-called leader of the UoM/Alma Delegation to the Conference of Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen – I have not made it to Copenhagen. I sit in the Frankfurt Airport. That nasty weather in Chicago was going to be a problem, and I …
Climate Blue 