writeaboutwarming

October 4, 2015 – Business is at long last throwing its weight around on behalf of the climate.   Progress toward mitigating climate change has been a nearly nonexistent process, occurring at nowhere close to the scale it needs to happen.   Governments bewail the fact they have too many constituents to keep happy, while business has wrung its hands over the cost of switching to renewable energy.   Meantime, this weekend alone has seen over 100 people buried in a landslide in Guatemala, 17 killed by flash flooding on the French Riviera, and unknown numbers of missing or dead in South Carolina as a result of torrential rain associated with Hurricane Joaquin. Corporations haven’t exactly broken any records in their rush to speak out, but ten companies came forward on October 1 with a letter to American and world leaders. The chief executive officers of these firms are pledging to accelerate actions that will mitigate climate change, and are urging word leaders to do t...

October 24, 2011 - I learned last week of a speech, delivered to the U.S. Senate by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (what a name!) of Rhode Island the week before. The speech was about climate change, of all things. The senator, a member of the Democratic party, spoke very directly and pulled no punches. Rather than describe his speech, let me quote a small portion of it to you: " ... There is a wave of very justificable economic frustration that has swept through our Capitol. The problem is that some of the special interests - the polluters - have insinuated themselves into that wave, sort of like parasites that creep into the body of a host animal, and from there they are working terrible mischief. They are propagating two big lies. One is that environmental regulations are a burden to the economy and we need to lift those burdens to spur our economic recovery. The second is [that] the jury is still out on climate changes caused by carbon pollution, so we don't need to worry abou...