Collide-a-scape

In passing comments published in yesterday’s New York Times Book review section, Stephen King explains how the previous Administration inspired the theme for his new new novel:

I enjoyed taking the Bush-Cheney dynamic and shrinking it to the small-town level. The last administration interested me because of the aura of fundamentalist religion that surrounded it and the rather amazing incompetency of those top two guys. I thought there was something blackly humorous in it. So in a sense, ‘Under the Dome’ is an apocalyptic version of ‘The Peter Principle.’

Or something to chew on when you pass the free range stuffing later this week.

UPDATE: CEJ’s Tom Yulsman has my favorite one-liner so far:

I’m not sure even Michael Crichton could have dreamed something like this up.

So this Hadley hacker affair will, as Keith Johnson at Environmental Scandal puts it, “spice things up” for a wee bit. It’s too early to jump to any conclusions, so Roger Pielke Jr.’s headline question is apt: “Climate Conspiracy or Much Ado About Nothing?”

For the moment, the histrionics will carry the day and maybe the weekend. One hardcore skeptic is already calling it

a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science.

Meanwhile, an overwrought Michael Tobis offers this:

It’s a travesty that the fate of the world is being reduced to word games.

Please. I thought Freeman Dyson already held that fate in his hands. Actually, Michael, you really ought to wait to see if the story has legs, as they say in the business. It’s not often I find myself nodding in agreement with the folks at Planet Gore, but they are right about this:

If legit, this apparently devastating series of revelations will be very hard for the media to ignore.

Even doubly so if it’s an inside job, as many are now speculating. And if it’s not, then this commenter at RPJ’s  site is thinking what every reporter following this story is thinking:

Whoever hacked these files did it for what’s now occuring. I doubt this is the work of a disinterested hacker. I think the hacker is an interested party who had some idea of what the emails contained.

So there’s a whodunit aspect to this that whets the journalistic appetite. And if more documents and emails follow, in a slow-drip fashion, well, that’s also great journalistic kindling. So all in all, I’d be shocked if the media didn’t follow up on this and start poking around.

My Friday post at Nature’s Climate Feedback is up.

That’s the title of a new story on “climate security” that I wrote for Nature Reports: Climate Change, published today.

Climate security has become more than a convenient frame for politicians looking to win support for cap and trade legislation. It’s a real concern that military brass around the world are trying to get a handle on. As Wired’s Danger Room also reports, the Navy is now taking a pro-active approach to global warming.

So whatever happens in Copenhagen or in the U.S. Congress, there’s no denying that a strategic shift is afoot in military circles, with respect to climate change.

[UPDATE: Heh, a day after I wrote my post, this appears in the Guardian]

Perhaps unbeknownst to them, Roger Pielke Jr. and Joe Romm agree that population is not an important variable to the climate change equation.

There’s a related issue that Roger doesn’t address in his post, when it comes to coupling population with climate advocacy: religious blowback. If you’re someone that believes all constituencies need to be engaged in tackling global warming, then you don’t want to needlessly antagonize millions of evangelicals, many who in recent years have become concerned about climate change, thanks to folks like Richard Cizik.

As Cizik has explained to me several times, conservative evangelicals have an instinctual suspicion of environmentalist agendas largely because of the population issue. Never mind that mainstream enviros don’t go down this road anymore. The impression remains.

Now as Roger points out in his post, family planning is not population control, but in the minds of many Christian fundamentalists, it’s one and the same. My point is this: if you’re a climate “realist,” you need to recognize that you run the risk of alienating a huge demographic (and important ally) if you play the population card.

The evangelical frame into the climate change debate is much different than a secular green frame. If you’re a smart, secular climate advocate, it doesn’t matter if you hail from the Richard Dawkins or PZ Myers camp, the same way it doesn’t matter if you’re a liberal activist and you’d never vote for Lindsey Graham.

What should matter to climate advocates, above all, is widening their tent. An initiative that links reducing greenhouse gases with population control measures is bound to keep a very important sector of the American public from visiting that tent.

If you read this post in Grist, and David Biello’s piece in Scientific American, you’re likely to walk away feeling encouraged by the recent China-U.S. joint statement, which lays out the common ground between the two countries on a host of issues, including “climate change, energy, and the environment.”

But if you want a more nuanced perspective, check out this post from Simon Donner, who also advises,

Read through the statement, and it is appears that both countries expect coal to remain king, and that emissions reductions will depend on the development and widespread implementation of CCS [carbon capture & sequestration] technology at coal-fired power plants.

So climate advocates applauding this “progress” between China and the U.S. must be feeling pretty good about that clean coal technology on the horizon.

My Tuesday post at Nature’s Climate Feedback is up.

Foreign Policy magazine cites President Obama as the top culprit. Bill McKibben couldn’t agree more but still winces as he sticks in the shiv. The editors at Mother Jones have to be plenty pissed too, since they gambled on Copenhagen’s relevance with the current special issue. They also had plans to send a team of staffers there. Gotta wonder if that’s still on, since the summit is shaping up to be, as McKibben now describes it,

nothing more than a glorified talking session.

David Roberts writes a cogent counter to Mr. 350, even counsels everyone to hang tight and let the prez play out his hand.

So far this green on green disagreement is oh so polite.  Just wait. You know who hasn’t weighed in yet. And there’s a certain famous climate scientist who is about to get back in the ring, after being sidelined with health issues.

McKibben/Roberts have just engaged in some harmless sparring. Think of it as a public warmup to the real deal. That one’s going 15 rounds, will be tag-team affair, and much bloggy blood will be shed. Get your popcorn on.

UPDATE:  Marc Morano, seizing on international criticism of Obama, has some fun:

Climate Depot warmly welcomes President Obama’s half-hearted climate efforts. Mr. President, welcome to the “delayers.”

It’s getting to be a big club, and the propagandists on both sides find it useful to their cause.

Black holes and Mayan prophecies do the trick. Global warming not so much.

Few seem to be getting worked up over peak oil, either, which has the resource depletion crowd wringing their hands.

Still, these are boom times for the apocalypse, as this piece in the Chicago Tribune reports.