Global Warming

No Republican contenders in the 2010 gubernatorial contest — except environmental activist Leslie Davis — believe in global warming, according to a report from Minnesota Public Radio. Perhaps most strident is state Sen. Mike Jungbauer (East Bethel), who told attendees at a recent State Fair debate that global warming is “pure, unadulterated BS.”

During a radio show on Saturday, Rep. Michele Bachmann described herself as a “foreign correspondent on enemy lines” in Washington, D.C. The Republican congresswoman went on to tell WWTC-AM:
I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a [...]

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been known for his break with the Republican Party on the issue of global warming. He’s said that the burning of fossil fuels is behind the increases in global temperature and has advocated various strategies to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and to use “cap and trade” strategies to reduce emissions.

But as a surrogate for Sen. John McCain, Pawlenty these days is crooning lullabies to the party’s base of (mostly religious) global warming doubters.

Last September the Chicago-based conservative think tank Heartland Institute rolled out a list of “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares.” Heartland Institute identified the researchers as those “whose research in professional journals provides historic and/or physical proxy evidence” that global warming has been caused by a long, moderate, natural cycle rather [...]

A new Gallup Poll suggests Americans are no more concerned about global warming than they were almost two decades ago.

In a telephone survey last month, 37 percent of 1,012 adults interviewed said they worry a “great deal” about global warming. That’s virtually unchanged from 19 years ago, when 35 percent responded the same way.

The findings [...]

Here’s for all the cynics out there: Michael Pollan, author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” argues in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine why seemingly small, individual steps to save the planet are worth taking:
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Chemists in Japan have figured out a way to sequester carbon emissions into a polycarbonate plastic that could be used to make compact discs or DVDs.

The breakthrough was reported at the 235th annual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The Inhabitat blog notes that much of the discussion around carbon sequestration has focused on finding [...]

As a rookie home brewer, I wasn’t happy to see this headline from MSNBC: “Beer lovers beware of global warming; Growing malting barley is gonna get tougher, expert warns.” Regional droughts and flooding have already spiked the price of hops. Now, news that barley will likely be in shorter supply as a big grower, Australia, [...]

Stephen Colbert has an ongoing joke in which he describes bears as the single greatest threat to America today. The bit might have made a good keynote address earlier this month at the Heartland Institute’s “International Conference on Climate Change” in New York. The gathering brought together global warming skeptics and deniers from around the [...]

MPR’s Tom Robertson reports on Minnesota’s dwindling moose population, which wildlife biologists believe may be affected by climate change. This story line is likely to turn up again and again. Most species are adapted to live within a defined range of temperatures. As the planet warms, many plants and animals lack the instincts or ability [...]