Open letter: Climate change and the integrity of science
We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.
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Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence....
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We've rallied, we've sent messages to the EPA, and we've shown that Americans overwhelmingly support a clean energy economy that creates jobs and fights global warming.
Now the US Chamber of Commerce wants to silence us by threatening to sue the EPA in an effort to put "the science of climate change on trial." This ridiculous and dangerous stunt is engineered to undermine the EPA's authority to fight global warming, which we fought so hard to support.
Send a message to US Chamber of Commerce member companies telling them that this case is closed--responsible businesses know climate change is real and that we need to do something about it now.
The Chamber of Commerce already had an opportunity to air any legitimate concerns when the EPA held a 60 day comment period on its finding that global warming poses a threat to our health and welfare.
Where was the Chamber of Commerce then?
The Chamber wants to pretend that the 41,000 comments we collected supporting the EPA were never written, that the 2,000 people who rallied at the hearing in Seattle never showed up, and that the people speaking out in favor of action to fight global warming at the hearing in Arlington, VA did not out number the skeptics by 9 to 1.
It's time to tell responsible companies to stop letting a handful of polluters use the Chamber of Commerce to hold our Country hostage to last century's dirty energy technology--Sign the petition today!
Earlier this year, a group of big companies like Nike and Johnson and Johnson sent a letter to the Chamber asking them to more accurately reflect the majority of American businesses who are well aware that the science of global warming is settled, and who want to move the U.S. into a cleaner energy future.
But it seems the Chamber is siding with a minority of polluting energy companies, even though it is now clear that reducing global warming emissions is good for both the economy and the environment.
Sign our petition to these responsible companies urging them to back up their words with action--the U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to come to its senses and side with the majority of its members who support action on global warming, or these companies should resign their memberships.
Thanks for all that you do to protect the environment.
Mary Anne Hitt
Sierra Club Big Picture Campaign
The Cloud!
The rest of the clouds, too!
Pat and I have just hired a car in the UK for 10 days: a Peugeot 308, a proper 4-seater with a non-trivial boot and a turbo-diesel engine, generally a nice car. The onboard computer told us the fuel consumption, for a mixed cycle of town, country and motorway driving, was 54 Imperial mpg, or 45 US mpg. It hadn't been zeroed between hires, so the value covered 2000 miles. Not bad; and comparable to what you can expect from a Toyota Prius hybrid. Peugeot, along with other European carmakers, are working on diesel hybrids: they promise 83 Imperial mpg for the comparable model due in 2010, or 69 US mpg.
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The main thought this experience has triggered is the insight that miles per gallon is now an obsolete and misleading measure.
What we should worry about is carbon emissions: grams per kilometre (or mile). For traditional cars, mpg is a perfectly good proxy. But not for hybrids. Once you enable recharging the battery from the mains, a car is no longer an isolated system. A hybrid used as an urban runabout in pure electric mode could have an infinite mpg; but it has positive carbon emissions, because electricity isn't carbon-neutral.
Partly sunny with a chance of snow showers. Total snow accumulation up to 1 inch possible. Breezy with highs in the upper 30s. Northwest winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.
