“It’s hard to take big-picture global temperature increases and bring them down to a personal level—partly because of that confusion between weather and climate, and partly because scientists simply have a better understanding what is very likely to happen in an averaged-out global system, than they have of how changes in that global system are likely to affect your backyard.
“I like the way Climate Wisconsin is trying to bridge that gap.”
“I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see it as proof of our society’s failure to construct a shared belief in climate change.”
“Carbon footprinting, the study of how much carbon dioxide is released in the process of producing, consuming and disposing of a product, is all about the specifics. This is a refreshing change from the politics of climate change, which is all about the generics. We hear promises from our leaders of big change in the future, without any credible plans right now.”
“The point is that we need to be clear about who are the realists and who are the fantasists here. The realists are actually the climate activists, who understand that if you give people in a market economy the right incentives they will make big changes in their energy use and environmental impact. The fantasists are the burn-baby-burn crowd who hate the idea of using government for good, and therefore insist that doing the right thing is economically impossible.”
“Powered only by natural sunlight, an array of nanotubes is able to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour into natural gas at unprecedented rates.”