Obama & Bill Nye Diss Republican Science Deniers

President Barack Obama and Bill Nye recently visited the Everglades in Florida. Obama and Nye discussed the Republican Party's denying climate change. Despite the scientific evidence saying mankind is contributing to climate change.

When I see members of Congress being part of the climate-denier clubs and basically stiff-arming what we know are facts — and not rebutting them with other facts but rebutting them with anecdote or just being dismissive,” Obama said before Nye interjected.

“‘Oh, I’m not a scientist,'” Nye said, sarcastically repeating a common conservative argument against the phenomenon.

“I’m not a scientist, either, but I know a lot of scientists,” Obama replied. “I have the capacity to understand science. The capacity to look at facts and base my conclusions on evidence. Part of shifting our political culture I think, is we’ve gotta model for our kids that facts matter.”

If these Republicans say they aren't scientists then they shouldn't go around making false claims about science.

Guacapocalypse Now: Chipotle Warns Investors of Climate Change

Chipotle Inc. has warned investors that climate change may change the ingredients of items on its menu.

“Increasing weather volatility or other long-term changes in global weather patterns, including any changes associated with global climate change, could have a significant impact on the price or availability of some of our ingredients,” the popular chain, whose Sofritas vegan tofu dish recently went national, said in its annual report released last month. “In the event of cost increases with respect to one or more of our raw ingredients we may choose to temporarily suspend serving menu items, such as guacamole or one or more of our salsas, rather than paying the increased cost for the ingredients.”

Chipotle fans can take heart. There is no looming guacamole crisis. Side note: I never thought I would type that last sentence.

But there's no reason for Chipotle fans to panic, says company spokesman Chris Arnold. He tells us that the warning included in the SEC filing is just a routine disclosure of risk factors that could impact business.

"There is no looming 'guacapocalypse' and I wouldn't read too much into this," Arnold tells The Salt in an email.

Chipotle Inc. has been committed to green business policies. The Chipotle restaurants in your area buy produce from local organic farmers. In Tampa, Chipotle has teamed up with Truck Farm Tampa to educate people on organic food. You can learn more about Truck Farm Tampa by contacting visiting www.truckfarmtampa.com.

:: Australia elections go the way of Great Britain, Italy and Spain: defeated by Bush's war, Al Gore, and Climate Change ::

In the greatest defeat in Australian history (well damned close), “the man of steel” and one of Bush’s greatest allies in his war farce, John Howard turns over the reins to Labor Progressive Kevin Rudd. I bet my friend Kryten is happy!

This weekend, Australians went to the polls and delivered an emphatic victory for Labor leader Kevin Rudd, while handing the party of conservative Bush ally John Howard its “worst election defeat in its 63-year history.” Howard “suffered the additional ignominy of losing his own constituency seat” in addition to the prime minister’s seat, the first time since 1929 that an Australian prime minister has been voted out of parliament. Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat who made combating global warming, strengthening workers’ rights, and redeploying from Iraq key priorities in his campaign, ”swings Australia toward the political left after almost 12 years of conservative rule.” The incoming prime minister has wasted no time implementing his new vision for Australia. Yesterday, he convened a meeting with government officials to discuss the mechanics of signing onto the Kyoto pact on global warming, and he announced that he will attend a U.N. climate change conference in Bali next month. Rudd soon plans to begin negotiations with the Bush administration over the withdrawal of Australia’s 500 troops from Iraq. “Today Australia looks to the future,” Rudd said. “Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward.”

… More than 60 percent of Australians want forces out of Iraq within a year, and Rudd pledged that Australian troops would leave by mid-2008 after consultations with the United States and the United Kingdom. Analysts noted that Bush “was a little more isolated in the world Sunday” after the loss of his close Australian ally.

I love this guy and know zero about him, other than the above. Interestingly enough, a magnificent Al Gore went to the White House as the Nobel Peace Prize winner (a hell of a rematch) for An Inconvenient Truth and chatted with Bush regarding, wait for it…… Climate Change! I suspect it went in one ear and out the other. With his other, powerful, naysayer pal Howard out of the way and Rudd’s intent to sign the Kyoto Accord, I hope this will now put more pressure on the U.S. to buck up and get on the train or get left behind.

CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL LOSING STEAM: For many years, Howard was one of the world’s foremost climate deniers, tag-teaming with the Bush administration to remain the only major industrialized nations to stay out of the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Until a few months ago when Howard moderated his climate change rhetoric for political reason, he and his ministers frequently “pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers.” When former vice president Al Gore traveled to Australia in September to deliver a speech on the climate crisis, Howard prohibited his party members from attending the event. With Australia mired in the midst of the worst drought the country has faced in a thousand years, Howard’s climate change denial put him in a political position isolated from his countrymen. The majority of Australians viewed climate change as the number one external threat to the country, and Rudd delivered what Australia wanted to hear. “I am determined to make Australia part of the global climate change solution — not just part of the global climate change problem,” Rudd said during his campaign.

Life is grand when it backfires on nasty people and gives the good people their due.

tag: gore, udd, howard, bush, labor, preogressive, election, nobel peace prize, kyoto accord, australia, climate change, iraq, war, peace

:: The Sustainability Index ::

I have been following the rise of "green markets" for over a decade.  When available, I try to stick my money into these investments rather than GE, etc.

So, this, although not all that surprising to me, is still amazing and about damned time:  S&P jumps into the growing pool of sustainability indexes with the launch of its Global Thematic Index Series.

The S&P Global Clean Energy Index measures the performance of 30 companies that focus on clean energy production, clean energy technology, and energy equipment. The Clean Energy Index excludes companies for which their involvement with clean energy is a small part of their overall business. The US firm MEMC Electronic Materials, maker of silicon wafers for the semi-conductor industry, is the index’s largest constituent at 6.35%.

The S&P Global Water Index gauges 50 companies: 25 water utilities and infrastructure companies and 25 water equipment and material companies. French company Veolia Environment has the biggest share of this index at 9.57%.

The S&P Global Infrastructure Index measures the performance of 75 companies that run utilities, pipelines, airports, ports and highways. Twenty-two countries are counted in this index, with Spanish company Abertis Infraestructuras, S.A. being the largest constituent at 4.71%

S&P is not alone in tracking the markets of clean energy, water and infrastructure. Another global sustainability benchmark is the WilderHill Clean Energy Global Innovation Index, which was launched in 2006 by New Energy Finance in a partnership with Wildershares. The KLD Global Climate 100SM Index and Ardour Global Indices are other well-known indexes that follow clean energy. The Palisade Water Index, published by the American Stock Exchange, follows the global water industry. The Macquarie Global Infrastructure Index series, produced by FTSE, tracks companies in the infrastructure industry.

On a broader level, in 1999 the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes became the first indexes to track the global performance of companies that focus on sustainability. These indexes look at companies across 58 sectors.

Alexander Barkawi, Managing Director, of the SAM Indexes told Socialfunds.com some of the reasons why he thinks there is a growth in renewable and sustainability indexes: "Investments into individual sustainability themes — particularly renewable energy and water — have indeed been on the rise over the last 12 months. The growing recognition among retail and institutional investors that the challenges of climate change and water scarcity also have significant impacts on their investments is obviously driving this
momentum."

"The global markets for solar, wind, biofuels, and fuel cells now exceed $50 billion annually," said Ron Pernick, Principal, Clean Edge Inc. and co-developer of the NASDAQ Clean Edge U.S. Index. "It's only natural that others are developing indexes to track this growing and dynamic sector. We're seeing compounded annual growth rates for a number of clean-energy sectors in the 30+ percent range," he explained. This index tracks pure-play clean energy companies. 

I do believe I'll be putting my money into some of these again.   

tag: S&P, stock, stock market, sustainability, sustainability index, energy, green, renewable energy, climate change, global warming

:: A Lesson: The Difference between Climate & Weather ::

For all you global warming or climate change skeptics/naysayers out there, or for those of you who would like to understand the difference, CAP has provided a great and simple explanation that bears reposting:

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report that confirmed and refined what scientists already knew: The recent global warming trend is real, it is caused primarily by human activities, and we can expect further dangerous warming of a few degrees if we don't reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases. Despite the very high level of confidence that the IPCC placed on this assertion, climate skeptics refuse to allow themselves to be convinced by the facts. Global warming deniers--desperate for any information that might contravene the science--have latched onto this month's colder-than-normal temperatures that have gripped much of the U.S., particularly the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. In fact, the temperature patterns we are currently experiencing are exactly what increasing greenhouse gas emissions predicts: climate destabilization.

• Weather and climate are two distinct and separate concepts. To understand why the current cold snap across the U.S. is occurring during a global warming trend, one must first understand the distinction between climate and weather. Climate is the "composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years." In other words, climate refers to recorded history. Weather, on the hand, is current events; it refers to the "state of the atmosphere at a given time and place." Weather is a snapshot of the climate at any one instant. Although the two are related, their relationship is indirect. "The chaotic nature of weather means that no conclusion about climate can ever be drawn from a single data point, hot or cold. The temperature of one place at one time...says nothing about climate, much less climate change, much less global climate change."
  
  
• The current trend of snowfall across the country is consistent with the increased precipitation expected to occur with a warming globe. Scientists have said "snowfall is often predicted to increase in many regions in response to anthropogenic [human-induced] climate change, since warmer air, all other things being equal, holds more moisture, and therefore, the potential for greater amounts of precipitation whatever form that precipitation takes." Based on computer models, a recent study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research found, "As Earth gets warmer, large regions will experience heavier rain and snowfall as weather becomes generally more intense." The NCAR climate models have predicted that heavier rains and/or snow would most likely affect regions where large masses of air converge, including northwestern and northeastern North America.
  
  
• Around the globe, the existence of a warming trend is clear. The long-trend trends present clear evidence that climate change is "real and serious." The IPCC report noted that the "the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years." Of the 12 hottest years on record, 11 have occurred since 1995. The 2006 average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was the warmest on record and nearly identical to the record set in 1998, according to scientists at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center. Residents of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area have this week been hit by a "gusty wintry wallop" and are experiencing below-average temperatures for this month. Yet, the deviation below the average temperature for February is still less than the above-average deviation that D.C. residents experienced during the month of January. While the climate change trend is clear, the weather patterns at different moments in time will be hard to predict.

I'm liking Tom Vilsack more all the time.

tag: temperature, climate, weather, climate change, global warming, tom vilsack, president, campaign, environment, energy, policy, government, IPCC